“I don’t underestimate how difficult it is to satisfy everybody” | Simon Sebag Montefiore on writing the history of Jerusalem

I was in the process of doing that when the attack by Hamas in southern Israel happened on 7 October last year. Since then there’s been such a deluge of misinformation and, frankly, ignorance and bias from all directions that it seemed even more urgent – particularly because, in the year after that attack, the book sold out many times in Britain and the US.

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For better or worse, the book is one of the few balanced accounts that attempts to tell the story of the creation of the Israeli nation and the Palestinian nation. Nothing is perfect, of course, and it would be hubristic and arrogant to think that anyone could write a perfectly balanced history. But I think this is as close as it gets.

This is among the most contested areas of world history, so how did you navigate the process of writing this book in a balanced way, fending off potential accusations of bias – from all sides?

First, you have the manuscript read by experts on both sides, who will hopefully advise you if you’ve got something wrong. But it’s also a matter of respect. When writing any book, if I recognise a preconception I have, I try to wipe it out and start looking at the evidence both ways.

The tragedy of the Holy City and the Holy Land is that, historically, this was always an incredibly cosmopolitan area – a multi-ethnic, multi-faith patchwork that developed across thousands of years. So it’s deeply depressing to chronicle the increasingly binary nature of what’s happening today: the way in which the other ethnic groups have been forgotten in this story, which has been reduced to this terrible battle between Israelis and Palestinians, each with their own version of history.

So I’ve read everything I can on all dimensions of these subjects. I’ve aimed to ensure that all narratives are respected and, wherever possible, I’ve set out to get as close as possible to what really happened – even if it offends both sides. And hopefully this book will offend both sides. As I say, I don’t underestimate how difficult it is to satisfy everybody. The increasing ferocity of the conflict in our times also makes it harder and harder to tell this history – but this is a very serious effort to do so.

While writing this book, I had a piece of paper next to me on the desk – a story about the first British governor of Jerusalem, Ronald Storrs. When he arrived in Jerusalem [as military governor] in 1917, he was initially quite popular – with Arabs, Christians, Jews, Muslims, everyone – but within a few months he was hated by all sides.

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So he went back to London to see the prime minister, David Lloyd George, and said: “I just have to resign.” And the PM replied: “Well, you’ve got to carry on with your job – but as soon as any one side stops hating you, I’ll sack you.” That story, I think, sums up the challenge of writing a history of Jerusalem.

In the new section, you write: “If this book has any mission, I passionately hope that it might encourage each side to recognise the ancient heritage of the other.” Can you expand on what you mean by this?

If you look at a social-media site such as X [formerly Twitter], you’re constantly reading posts written from ultra-nationalist Israeli or ultra-nationalist Palestinian viewpoints, denying the history of the other in Jerusalem and in the wider Holy Land. There are also many pro-Israeli histories that minimise the real story of the Islamic presence, and many pro-Palestinian histories that make all sorts of bizarre claims about ancient history and the very existence of the first and second Jewish Temples.

Amid all this, I’m trying to get as close as possible to what really happened. And at the very heart of the story is the Temple Mount, also known as Haram al-Sharif, around which the competition of different faiths, cultures and civilisations is incredibly complex and intense. This site has been home to such a range of different places of worship – and provides just one example of the need to get a very complex story absolutely correct.

You asked at the start of our conversation about what I set out to do with this new version. Well, of course, missing from the 2011 edition were all of the characters from the past 50 years that we now think of as being massively important: [Palestinian leader] Yasser Arafat, [Israeli general and prime minister] Ariel Sharon, [Syrian president] Bashar Assad, [current Israeli prime minister] Benjamin Netanyahu and Saddam Hussein, right up to Joe Biden.

As well as bringing the story up to date, I also wanted to set the Holy City and the Holy Land into the context of the wider region – because it’s impossible to understand the creation of the modern Middle East without understanding the region. All of its modern states were created at the same time, essentially by the colonial powers, and most had never existed before.

Does setting this recent history into a longer narrative sweep reveal any continuities or echoes?

An episode that I recount in the earlier section of the book is the peace deal between Ayyubid Sultan al-Kāmil and Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor and king of Jerusalem, who in 1229 agreed to divide the city between the religions. It’s one of several examples from across the centuries that I think can provide inspiration to us today – showing that these kinds of things have been attempted in different eras.

Your recent conversation on X with fellow historian William Dalrymple, in which you disagreed on an aspect of Middle Eastern history, was praised for remaining cordial. How unusual is that kind of civil online discourse when discussing complex historical subjects?

It’s very unusual – but, of course, the internet is the worst forum on which to discuss the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Social media is the very last place where peace will ever be negotiated, because social media – and its algorithms specifically – are created to enrage and provoke, and to funnel people into echo chambers and concrete, fortified positions. So it’s almost impossible to understand a complex historical subject such as the Middle East and its nuances on that kind of digital platform.

William and I have known each other for almost 40 years, and decided there was no point in falling out now – because so many people have fallen out over this subject. The only way it’s going to work is if people learn about each other and respect their narratives. That’s the entire mission of the book. We’re trying to set a small example of how being civil to one another, criticising each other in a polite way, can be done.

Do you think this increased division and intensification means historians increasingly find themselves on the front line?

I do think many of us feel like we’re involved in some kind of battle. I also write about Russian history, and my history of the world [2022’s The World: A Family History] touched on empire and slavery – subjects that have become very fraught in recent years. Indeed, I think the two books are complementary.

Benjamin Disraeli famously said that the history of Jerusalem is the history of the world, and while that’s not quite true – eastern and southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa don’t play any role in the history of Jerusalem, for instance – they overlap.

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Of course, when you look to the past, you realise history has always mattered. That’s why figures such as Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong took history so seriously, and wrote books attempting to supervise which stories are told. One of the great influences on my writing is the [14th and 15th-century] north African Arab scholar Ibn Khaldun. His brother, also a historian, was assassinated by a fellow historian.

And if you look to China, its great [second and first-century BC] historian Sima Qian was arrested by the emperor for criticising his rule. Offered the choice of execution or castration, Sima Qian chose the latter – so he could finish his book.

These stories show us that the writing of history has always been fraught. We think today’s battles over history are unique, but it has been always thus.

Simon Sebag Montefiore is a historian, author and broadcaster. His latest books is an updated edition of Jerusalem: The Biography – A History of the Middle East (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2024)

This article was first published in the December 2024 issue of BBC History Magazine