On Thursday, March 5th, Yossi Alpher will be in Washington DC promoting his new book, Periphery: Israel's Search for Middle East Allies. APN is hosting a brown-bag lunch – you provide the lunch, we provide the hamantaschen – Yes, the 5th happens to be Purim!

Yossi is an extremely knowledgeable and perceptive commentator on Israel and the Middle East.Yossi’s talk will focus on his book, but I’m sure he will also address the Israeli elections which will be taking place shortly after his book tour.

Please join us at 11:30 am at the Americans for Peace Now office at 2100 M Street NW, Suite 619.

Let us know by February 25th whether you will be joining us, by emailing Alana at asuskin@peacenow.org. We look forward to seeing you. Space is limited, so please let us know as soon as you can whether you would like to attend.

You can read the Amazon advance review of the book here.

Here is a little more information on our speaker:

Yossi Alpher is an Israeli Security expert. He writes Hard Questions, Tough Answers, a weekly Q&A for Americans for Peace Now, and The Strategic Interest, a monthly column for The Forward, for which he won the 2009 American Jewish Press Association Simon Rockower Award (first place) for excellence in commentary. In 2001 he wrote And The Wolf Shall Dwell With The Wolf: the Settlers and the Palestinians, and, until recently, was coeditor of bitterlemons.org and bitterlemons-international.org together with Ghassan Khatib, former Minister of Planning in the Palestinian Authority.

Yossi Alpher served in the Israel Defense Forces as an Intelligence officer, followed by 12 years in the Mossad. From 1978 to 1980, he was an intelligence analyst on Iran. 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. Since 1992 he has coordinated several track II dialogues between Israelis and Arabs. In July 2000 (during the 2000 Camp David Summit) Alpher served as Special Adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, concentrating on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.