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How did World War I destabilize the entire Middle Eastern state system? What was the role of national and transnational players and how did they compete with powerful international alliances? And in which way did politico-territorial boundaries change during and after the First World War?These and other questions have been discussed on the panel "Early 20th Century, World War I and New Order in the Middle East" which was livestreamed this morning and is still available online.The panel is part of the conference "Where is the Middle East heading?" organized by the Orient-Institut Beirut – in cooperation with Lepsiushaus Potsdam, the Moses Mendelssohn Centre at Potsdam University and the European Academy Berlin. The conference explores and compares the conditions, political dynamics, survival strategies, and international networks of different ethno-religious minorities in the Middle East in the framework of the historical development spanning the end of the Ottoman Empire, the European Mandate period and the era of Arab nationalism up to the present.