“Trump Has Never Read a Book”–A Historian on Iran, Israel & Rome

Tom Holland has spent his career explaining how the ancient world made the modern one. In this episode, Unholy puts that to the test — with Iran and Israel at war in real time. Holland, co-host of The Rest Is History and one of Britain’s most celebrated historians, walks Jonathan Freedland and Yonit Levi through the questions that actually matter: why did the Jews survive when Carthage didn’t? What did Cyrus the Great mean to both Persians and Jews — and what does he mean now? And what is every American administration missing when they sit down to deal with Tehran? His answer to the last question is unsparing: they’re dealing with people who genuinely believe in prophecy and apocalypse, and no one in Washington has bothered to understand that. He’s also clear that the historical connection between Jews and the land of Israel isn’t a contested point — it’s an established fact that people choose to ignore.