Neville Teller

Born in London and educated at Oxford University, Neville combined a career in the Civil Service with writing for BBC radio as dramatist and abridger. In addition, he has been commenting on the Middle East political scene for some 35 years, with five books published on the subject.

CATHERINE CONNOLLY addresses a demonstration against the sale of Israeli bonds throughout the EU, outside the Central Bank of Ireland in Dublin, in May. Last week, she was elected overwhelmingly as Ireland’s new president.

Ireland’s anti-Israel president: Connolly's victory shows where the public leans - opinion

The majority of Irish opinion regards the Palestinian Arabs as a Middle East version of themselves.

NOVEMBER 3, 2025

A DRONE VIEW shows destruction in Gaza City last week. In a poll conducted in May 2024, some 70% of Gazans approved of Hamas’s onslaught on October 7, 2023. One year later, that support had shrunk to 38%, the writer notes.

A narrow set of choices for Gaza: What’s the future for Hamas? - opinion

Following the Gaza ceasefire and the completion of the hostage-prisoner exchange, Hamas faces a narrow set of strategic choices.

OCTOBER 27, 2025

KING GEORGE V delivers the 1934 Royal Christmas Message on BBC Radio.

'Frequencies of Deceit': Propaganda broadcasting in the heyday of the radio age - review

From the previously under-appreciated source of radio broadcasting, Margaret Peacock sheds new light on how and why today’s Middle East has developed.

OCTOBER 26, 2025

Gang war in Gaza: Determining the future of Hamas's rule - opinion

Hamas is now facing open defiance from not just one or two but multiple armed groups.

OCTOBER 19, 2025

A HAMAS TERRORIST stands guard in Khan Yunis last week. As of the end of last month, over a dozen new anti-Hamas armed groups had emerged, reflecting a virtual collapse of Hamas’s monopoly on territorial control and security, the writer argues.

'Moses Maimonides': A Cornell professor’s look at the Rambam - review

Images in the book include a responsum in Maimonides’s own hand, signed “Moshe” by him. It is one of many such documents discovered in the Cairo 'geniza,' a storage of Hebrew and Aramaic documents.

OCTOBER 19, 2025

Engraving Maimonides in ‘Thesaurus antiquitatum sacrarum,’ 1744 by Blaisio Ugolino.

Keir Starmer’s Palestinian state recognition: Sacrificing principle to domestic politics - opinion

Faced with domestic pressures, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer sacrificed principle for appeasement in recognizing a Palestinian state.

OCTOBER 16, 2025

Britain’s Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper.

Palestinian leadership post-Gaza war: Who are the prospective leaders of the future? - opinion

Who are the prospective Palestinian leaders of the future?

OCTOBER 13, 2025

THEN-MIDEAST envoy Tony Blair speaks at a news conference with then-PA prime minister Salam Fayyad in Ramallah, 2008. Blair would no doubt support Fayyad as a candidate for the Gaza technocratic committee, says the writer.

Sweida’s crisis and the quiet path to a Syria-Israel security deal - opinion

The US is playing a mediating role in the Syria-Israel security discussions, and is also deeply involved in the agreement known as the 'Sweida roadmap,' publicly announced in Damascus.

OCTOBER 8, 2025

People stand next to a destroyed tank turret, following deadly clashes between Druze fighters, Sunni Bedouin tribes, and government forces, in Syria's predominantly Druze city of Sweida, Syria July 25, 2025.

Accentuating the positive: Mahmoud Abbas's UN address - opinion

Abbas discussed the Palestinian Authority’s reform agenda, which Western officials say can show whether the PA could oversee genuine statehood.

SEPTEMBER 29, 2025

UK PRIME MINISTER Keir Starmer hosts PA head Mahmoud Abbas at 10 Downing Street earlier this month. According to the last major poll of Palestinian opinion, about 81% of all Palestinians want Abbas to resign, notes the writer.

Is the Iranian regime on the verge of collapse? - opinion

So, despite Pahlavi’s wishful thinking, the Iranian regime remains deeply entrenched, and – unfortunately, in many people’s opinion – seems far from the verge of collapse.

SEPTEMBER 28, 2025