Peace now yossi alpher biography
Yossi Alpher is an independent security analyst. He is the former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, a former senior official with the Mossad, and a former IDF intelligence officer. Views and positions expressed here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily represent APN's views and policy positions.
Q: What happened in late March 2002 that merits our attention? What’s the link to March 2022?
A: What transpired in Netanya, Beirut and the West Bank on March 27-28-29, 2002, has ever since then influenced the course of events between Israelis and Palestinians and in the region in general. An appreciation of those three days is key to understanding what is happening in Israel in late March 2022, exactly 20 years later.
I have written about the events of those three days and their aftermath in my latest book, Death Tango: Ariel Sharon, Yasser Arafat and Three Fateful Days in March, published last month by Roman & Littlefield. You can read reviews at my website, yossialpher.com.
March 27, 2002, was the eve of Pesach (Passover), the Jewish people’s celebration of national liberation through flight from ancient Egypt. That evening, the traditional Seder meal at Netanya’s Park Hotel was the scene of Israel’s worst suicide bombing ever, perpetrated by Palestinian Islamist Hamas. Thirty Israelis were killed and nearly 200 wounded. Israelis and Jews everywhere were deeply traumatized.
The next day, March 28, in Beirut, up the Mediterranean coast from Netanya, an Arab League summit meeting approved the Arab Peace Initiative (API), which aspired to be the definitive Arab formula for Arab-Israel peace. If Israel would agree to a Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines and conclude parallel territories-for-peace agreements with Syria and Lebanon, the entire Arab world would reward it with peace, normal relations and security.
A day later, March 29, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon respo Israeli writer Yossi (Joseph) Alpher (Hebrew: יוסי אלפר) is an Israeli columnist and writer on Israel-related Middle East strategic issues. Alpher is best known as the author of the prize winning Periphery: Israel's Search for Middle East Allies, as well as coeditor of Bitterlemons in collaboration with Ghassan Khatib, a former vice president of Bir Zeit University. In recent years, Alpher has been extensively interviewed in documentaries about the Mossad. Alpher graduated from Columbia University in 1964 before serving in the Israel Defense Forces as an Intelligence officer, followed by service in the Mossad. From 1981 to 1995, he was associated with the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies (JCSS) at Tel Aviv University, ultimately serving as director of the center. While at the Jaffee Center, Alpher coordinated and coedited the JCSS research project on options for a Palestinian settlement, and produced "The Alpher Plan" for an Israeli-Palestinian territorial settlement. From 1995 to 2000 he served as director of the American Jewish Committee's Israel/Middle East Office in Jerusalem. In July 2000 (during the 2000 Camp David Summit) he served as Special Adviser to the Prime Minister of Israel, working with Prime Minister Ehud Barak on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Alpher writes Hard Questions, Tough Answers, a weekly security Q&A for Americans for Peace Now. Yossi Alpher
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Feb 10 2025
Q. Your title reads like a bizarre stream of consciousness . . .
A. It was quite a week. Every event (Gaza), bombastic statement (Trump), or low-key yet momentous mass prisoner release by Israel called up a troublesome association from the past. Even the comparisons of freed Israeli hostages to Nazi camp survivors, while historically problematic, were understandable to anyone who knows the US Army photos of Buchenwald and Bergen Belsen survivors from 1945.
Q. Perhaps you can start with the Israeli release of Palestinian prisoners. That got the least media attention.
A. Every time we see three or four Israeli hostages released by Hamas after being paraded before a ludicrous terrorist pseudo-tribunal, with Red Cross participation and a mass Gazan audience, Israel responds by releasing over 100 (183 on Saturday) convicted or recently captured Palestinian terrorists from its jails--with minimal ceremony and fanfare.
There are several reasons for Israel to downplay its weekly release of Palestinian prisoners. First, it is extremely unpopular among Israelis, who are well aware that they are likely setting free the next Yahya Sinwar, the next Hamas or Islamic Jihad suicide bomber.
Shin Bet statistics show that around 12 percent of Palestinian terrorists who are convicted and later released by Israel are terrorism recidivists. Recall that Sinwar, the Hamas leader who orchestrated the October 7 attack on Israel, was released in 2011 as part of the deal for captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.
Second, Hamas quite understandably trumpets the release by Israel of its incarcerated Palestinian terrorists and fighters--some, frankly, also looking emaciated and abused--as a victory. The price Hamas extracts from Israel for a single Israeli--dozens of terrorists--is indeed mind-boggling in the annals of prisoner exchanges. Compare for example to Russians and Ukrainians, whose POW exchanges are roughly one-on-one.
Is one Israeli re Yossi Alpher is an independent security analyst. He is the former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, a former senior official with the Mossad, and a former IDF intelligence officer. Views and positions expressed here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily represent APN's views and policy positions. Continue reading Yossi Alpher is an independent security analyst. He is the former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, a former senior official with the Mossad, and a former IDF intelligence officer. Views and positions expressed here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily represent APN's views and policy positions. Continue reading Yossi Alpher is an independent security analyst. He is the former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, a former senior official with the Mossad, and a former IDF intelligence officer. Views and positions expressed here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily represent APN's views and policy positions. Continue reading Yossi Alpher is an independent security analyst. He is the former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, a former senior official with the Mossad, and a former IDF intelligence officer. Views and positions expressed here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily represent APN's views and policy positions. Continue reading Yossi Alpher is an independent security analyst. He is the former director of the Jaff Hard Questions, Tough Answers
Yossi Alpher is an independent security analyst. He is the former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, a former senior official with the Mossad, and a former IDF intelligence officer. Views and positions expressed here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily represent APN's views and policy positions.