Inside the World’s Most Complicated Region

The beginning of Max Frost’s on-the-ground series from the Middle East

By Max Frost

The world looks very different from here.

I thought that a number of times on my recent trip to the Middle East.

In a Hezbollah-controlled town, where posters of “martyrs” line the buildings. In a Lebanese village with Israeli drones flying above. In an Israeli village, sleeping in a bomb shelter. In the West Bank, looking at an Israeli settlement. In an Israeli kibbutz, seeing the blood from October 7 still spattered on the walls. In that same town, hearing the “boom” of artillery and then watching smoke rise from the distant Gaza towns.

In the Middle East, everything is a matter of perspective, and I went to understand those perspectives.

This journey starts in Lebanon and crosses that country’s Christian, Shia, and Sunni areas. It proceeds to Jordan, where I crossed one of the world’s most secure borders into the West Bank – Palestine (or, to many Israelis I would meet, “Judea and Samaria”). It continues to the Israel-Lebanon border, where I saw artillery land on one side, then heard it get launched from the other. On the way to the border with Gaza, I passed through working-class Israeli towns, a community named for Donald Trump, and the booming tech towns on the Mediterranean. And finally, I reached the communities where October 7 happened, triggering the war that culminated in the region-engulfing conflict we’re now witnessing.

In each place, my mind changed. I met people who, sitting in America, I’d considered terrorists, lunatics, extremists. Speaking to them in their land and their homes, they started to seem sane. Narratives I had always believed started to crumble. The complexity of the region became inescapable. And, I realized: Anyone who has a simplistic view on this part of the world is either much smarter than I am, or failing to grasp the full reality.

In this on-the-ground series, I’ll share the experiences that opened my eyes to the reality of the Middle East. By the end, I’ll be considered a Zionist shill, terrorist sympathizer, and Christian extremist. Arabs and Israelis alike will be mad. And if they aren’t, I probably haven’t done my job.

Moving forward, we’ll be publishing one of these most days and linking it in The Current. You can find all editions here.