The Cauldron - Simon Sebag Montefiore on the Middle East

Simon Sebag Montefiore The Cauldron: The Making of the Modern Middle East 1900-2026 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2026)

I was excited to see notice of this book, manoeuvred family affections to receive it as a gift for Father's Day, and now I have read it, have not been disappointed by it. 

Montefiore writes well, keeps sections of each chapter brief and to the point, and breathlessly flicks across those sections from one country to another as the tale of several empires, a dozen or so countries, many cities, and the fables of diverse emirs, imams, pashas, sultans, kings, presidents, plotters and premiers are told. 

Along the way we meet many a familiar terrorist and autocrat and learn the dangers of foreign interventionism by middling, large and super powers. With some rare and all too readily forgotten exceptions of peace and good-will periods, the Middle East (here meaning from Morocco to Iran, from Turkey to South Sudan) has been a cauldron for these past 127 years. There have been a lot of deaths, whether through war, massacre, genocide, or repression of protests. Has any single death or multiple set of deaths since 1900 brought lasting calm to the cauldron, let alone paved the way for peace in the next few years? It appears not, is one conclusion to draw from the book.

Also along the way, we may learn some new information, as I did, when I read (p. 148) that the British in 1946, via foreign secretary Bevin, described as a "splenetic Jew-hater", for a final time 

"offered Palestinian Arabs an independent Palestine with no Jewish state." 

An offer in 1939 had also been made by the Brits. That is, when the current State of Israel in some conversations I listen into is described as an outcome of (once again) British colonization of a foreign land, there was, in fact, a different British-led outcome possible for the Arabs of Palestine. The response?

"The mufti, who had narrowly escaped prosecution as a Nazi war criminal, still controlled the Palestinian Arab delegation and again he refused an independent Palestine." 

No doubt the mufti had his reasons but I am left with the question, how might the anguish we experience today over the course of current destructive events in Gaza and the West Bank be so very different if this offer had been taken up?

The story of the wider Middle East through these past 127 years is a story of many deaths, much heartbreak, oppressive rulers, malignant imperial ambitions (not only held by Britain, France, Russia and the USA ... hello Turkey, Iran, Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Israel), opportunities taken and opportunities turned down, and extremism, both the extreme wealth for some that oil has made available and the extreme positions held by some followers of major faiths. In Montefiore's telling there is nevertheless some reason for hope for a better future than the history of these past years implies: the fanatics of religious sects, with their "alien new ideologies" are not actually recognised by the majority of Middle Eastern peoples for whom their faith has taught them "loving kindness" and who not "invested in [the fanatics'] cycles of butchery, bigotry and ideology." (p. 422)

Nevertheless the challenge is to convert hope to lasting peaceful reality. That conversion is not in sight but Montefiore rightly observes the importance of the majority finding a way to better understand one another:

"Ignorance is the father of righteous certainty, hatred and slaughter; knowledge is the mother of respect for others, alliance, sharing and tolerance. Knowledge is an elixir, the antidote to the poisons of supremacy, bigotry and ignorance. Peace is only possible when a majority in any society hears and accepts the narrative of others. That is the mission of this book." (p. 422)

I would add to this charter for the way forward the importance of forgiveness. The Cauldron recites again and again the pain and loss experienced by many people, injury and devastation which fuels bitterness and has led to multiple quests for revenge and retribution. There is, when all is said and done, only one way to break cycles of violence motivated by past crimes against humanity and historic losses of life and land: to forgive one another.

With respect to the foremost conflict which drives our Western interest in the Middle East, and likely motivates readers here to buy this book or borrow it from a local library, conflict in the Holy Land and conflict about the Holy Land, Montefiore makes the astute observation that current interest 

"is now so intense and widespread that Israel-Palestine has literally become a domestic issue in many parts of Europe and North America ... [It] is just the latest chapter in the West's strange proprietorial interest in the Holy Land that started in the late first millennia after Christ and is still going strong. Between 1914 and the 2000s, this spirit worked in favour of a Jewish state; in the last twenty years, the same obsession has inverted against it. The emotive, ideological campaign to replace the Judaic republic with a state of Palestine is ostensibly secular but often has the feel of a religious movement, even a crusade." (p. 420)

Where to from here for the Holy Land? Even as I have been reading the book these past few weeks, the destructive vindictiveness of the extremist-led Israeli government has killed more Palestinians and stolen more land. It is difficult if not impossible to see a pathway to peace for the Holy Land, to keep hope alive for a viable future for two distinct peoples. It remains the cauldron within The Cauldron.