What happened in this episode?
Historian Simon Sebag Montefiore discusses themes from his book on the modern Middle East, arguing that the region’s contemporary conflicts cannot be separated from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the First World War settlements. He disputes simplified readings of Sykes–Picot, emphasising later treaties and the League of Nations “mandate” system, which he characterises as imperial rule under a new label. Montefiore describes the rise of competing nationalisms and the formation of new states, including Turkey’s emergence under Atatürk and the population exchange with Greece.
On Palestine and Israel, he traces British policy shifts, Arab and Jewish leadership divisions, and the 1947 UN partition plan, which he calls militarily unworkable. He makes contested claims about the 1947–48 refugee flight, arguing that large numbers of Palestinian Arabs left before Israel’s declaration of independence, while also describing Israeli expulsions from Lydda and Ramle as an “atrocity”. He also recounts the role of Haj Amin al-Husseini, alleging ideological alignment with Nazism and describing wartime contacts with Hitler.
The discussion later turns to Iran: the Pahlavi state’s creation and reforms, Western and Soviet intervention during the Second World War, and the 1979 revolution. Montefiore depicts Ayatollah Khomeini as a shrewd political operator who forged a coalition before establishing a theocratic system, and he argues that post-2003 Iraq enabled Iran’s regional militia network.
