Simon Sebag Montefiore: Appeasing radical activists will make the West ungovernable.
Ahead of a new book about the Middle East, the historian reflects on the dangerous public discourse around terrorism, migration and gender.
Claire AllfreeShow biography
Published 15 August 2026 6:00am BST
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Montefiore pictured for The Telegraph in his Notting Hill home Credit: Andrew Crowley
The historian Simon Sebag Montefiore has always been a keen observer of British politicians. After all, this is the man who introduced his close friend King Charles, then the Prince of Wales, to David Cameron and Michael Gove over a cosy kitchen supper before Cameron became prime minister. As a 17-year-old schoolboy at Harrow, he took Margaret Thatcher to task in an interview for the school magazine. He often has the ear of party leaders, and frequently discussed the seemingly interminable quagmire between Israel and Gaza with Keir Starmer while he resided in No 10 – his principal suggestion being to avoid implying that there was a straightforward, legalistic solution.
So I’m keen to know what words of advice this genial man has for Britain’s new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham. “Burnham is the king of breezy affability, of middle-aged DJing and of crisp-eating clips,” he says, dryly. “But his challenges will come fast when he has to match all those promises and catchphrases with reality. Most of all, he needs to bear in mind that the foreign and domestic policy of a great power such as Britain should not be directed by small cadres of aggressive radical activists, but by a calm, long-term analysis of what our interests are.”
I meet Montefiore, or Sebag, as he likes to be known, in his five-storey Notting Hill town house – white wooden floors, carefully chosen art, extremely tidy bookshelves – where he lives with his wife, Santa, a romance novelist and sister of the late society girl and TV presenter Tara Palmer-Tomkinson. When Santa and Montefiore married in 1998 (they had a Jewish wedding: Montefiore is Jewish and Santa converted for him), they wrote at the same table together in a tiny flat in Battersea, dreaming of becoming writers. Now, they have separate studies – his cream, clean, almost monkish; hers adjacent but for a shallow flight of stairs. She has written around 35 books, many bestselling, and he, now 61, is one of the most acclaimed historians of our time. His books, which include biographies of Catherine the Great and the Romanovs, have won multiple prizes and are read by the political elite (Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and George W Bush are all fans).
Montefiore and Santa Palmer-Tomkinson married in 1998 in a Jewish ceremony: he is Jewish and Santa converted for him Credit: Ian Jones
Not for nothing, then, are they known as one of the best-connected couples in London. Politicians and aristocrats mingle at Montefiore’s launch parties. Charles and Camilla were guests at his and Santa’s wedding, and the four regularly go skiing together, thanks in part to a strong friendship forged on the slopes between Santa’s parents and Charles during his marriage to Diana. Montefiore and Charles reportedly go to the theatre together. Although, disappointingly, he points out that the King doesn’t exactly pop around for dinner. “It only happened the once!” he protests.
I try to dig further, though Montefiore pleasantly refuses to spill any more beans on his and the King’s 30-year friendship. “But I will say that the fact we’ve had seven prime ministers in the last 10 years has demonstrated how important the continuity and service of a constitutional monarchy can be. King Charles has known every leader since Churchill. We’re incredibly lucky to have a sovereign who has such a record of service, diligence, diplomacy and duty – all the things that we should associate with politicians. We saw that when he met Trump in America [during a state visit in April]. None of his predecessors could have done what he did there.”
Montefiore and King Charles pictured talking with Richard E Grant (centre). The King and Montefiore have been friends for three decades Credit: Jonathan Brady/WPA Pool/Getty
I’m here because Montefiore is about to publish another book, a 20th-century history of the Middle East. Aptly titled The Cauldron, it’s a companion piece to two of his previous books: 2011’s Jerusalem: The Biography, and 2022’s The World: A Family History of Humanity. “Obviously, books about Israel and Palestine are an ever expanding industry,” he says before I can. “But there’s so much misunderstanding. After the October 7 Hamas attacks against Israel, I felt there was a real necessity for a book that put [the entire region] all together.”
Certainly, The Cauldron is terrifically comprehensive. Stretching from 1900 to the present day, it both zips along and bulges with detail, offering a blockbuster narrative of old empires collapsing and new nations created, of playboy kings and Western imperialists, of deals struck, promises broken, blood spilt and everywhere volcanic upheaval and change.
Above all, Montefiore has taken immense care to depict highly charged events as neutrally as possible. “I’m not ideological. I’m not following either a Marxist imperialist or de-colonialist view of history,” he says. “Everyone has forgotten that the creation of Turkey and Israel happened against the will of Empire. Everyone says that it was the British who helped create Israel in 1948, but in fact Israel was an armed revolt against British imperial power… the history is essential for understanding what is happening now: if you want to understand why, for example, president Erdoğan of Turkey keeps talking about wanting to rule Jerusalem, Beirut and Damascus [formerly part of the Ottoman Empire], then it’s all here.”
It’s telling that Montefiore feels the need to frame The Cauldron as a primer for the less-informed. Everyone has opinions on the conflict of Israel and Gaza, but many of us would be hard pressed to articulate the finer points of its torturous, millennia-old history. Subjective interpretations of the facts, let alone flat-out ignorance of them, is rampant in the febrile ideological climate that has sprung up with renewed toxicity in the wake of the Hamas attacks. “October 7 changed everything,” he says. “It was years in the planning that did what it was meant to do, which was to put the Palestinian issue at the centre of the world, unleash the ideology of anti-Zionism in Western universities, and nix the Saudis normalising agreements with Israel. The only thing it hasn’t succeeded in is helping the Palestinian people.”
The speed and intensity of anti-Israel sentiment that has spread like wildfire through Britain took Montefiore “by surprise”. “There’s nowhere better to live now than Britain or America or France than at any other point in the last 10,000 years,” he says. “Yet that unprecedented comfort, liberalism and freedom have permitted the hothouse of exciting but intolerant radicalisms such as ‘de-colonialisation’, ‘anti-Americanism’, ‘anti-Westernism’, ‘Third-World-ism’ – whatever you want to call it – particularly in many cultural, academic and media institutions in this country.”
The speed and intensity of anti-Israel sentiment that has spread through Britain took Montefiore ‘by surprise’ Credit: Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images DT.
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