What We Miss When We Talk about the “Middle East”

['Natalia Antelava', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Where Img', 'Height Auto Max-Width', 'Vertical-Align Bottom .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Vertical-Align Middle .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar Is .Alignleft .Alignright'] Coda Story 2025-07-07 12:05:09

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad’s notebooks are filled not just with his notes from the Middle East but with sketches. The conversation happened at a moment when the Middle East was literally on the brink of a wider war. And then there was his insight into how the West – and the world – misunderstands the Middle East: “At one point, I realized there is no one conflict crossing the region from Tehran to Sana’a via Baghdad and Damascus. But a constellation of smaller conflicts utilized for a bigger one… It’s so much easier to understand the conflict in the Middle East as Iran versus the Sunnis or the Jihadis versus Israel. In that room, for an hour, we weren’t talking about “the Middle East” as an abstraction, but about the weight of history on individual lives.