This week, Alpher discusses Netanyahu's motives for agreeing to release terrorists from Israeli jails as an entry ticket to two-state solution negotiations in Washington, why Netanyahu agreed to release terrorist murderers rather than accept what appear to be alternative Palestinian preconditions: the 1967 lines or a settlement freeze, what the first substantial area of disagreement will be about, how significant is it that the European Union "balanced" its directives regarding settlements by declaring the Hezbollah military wing a terrorist organization, whether Washington is justified in refusing to view the army takeover as a coup that requires cutting off aid and Israel's election of two chief rabbis.

This week, Alpher discusses whether last week's events were a major turning point in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, if what we are seeing are indeed renewed peace talks, what changed in the Israeli-Palestinian reality to push the leaders to drop some of their conditions, accept others, and agree for their negotiators to meet, why these negotiations are different from all previous negotiating attempts between Netanyahu and Abbas, and why the EU decision, if its economic impact is limited, is significant.

This week, Alpher discusses why the IDF has announced a radical downsizing, why American officials leaked to the media that it was Israel that destroyed a Syrian arms depot near Latakia last week, and a comparison of the 2011 and 2013 army takeovers in Egypt to that carried out by Nasser in 1952.

This week Alpher responds to the question of what he thinks is likely to happen next in Egypt, and discusses what ramifications of last week's military takeover in Egypt that can already be identified are relevant for Israel, how he would characterize the damage done by the army takeover in Egypt to the cause of democratization in the Arab world, what are the army's options, and his take as an ex-intelligence official on the Snowden revelations

This week, Alpher discusses who is to blame for the failure, thus far, of Secretary of State John Kerry's Middle East peace mission, how the Israeli public will address this breakthrough should Kerry succeed in compelling Netanyahu and Abbas to enter negotiations, how significant Netanyahu's apparent growing isolation within his own Likud party is, and whether, one year after a Muslim Brotherhood candidate was elected to the presidency of Egypt, the country is undergoing another revolution.