Israeli strategic consultant Yossi Alpher’s experience as an intelligence official for Mossad, director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University and special advisor to then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak at the 2000 Camp David Summit, makes him well placed to analyse the challenges facing Israel and the policies it currently operates. He has documented his views in two recently published books: Periphery: Israel’s Search for Allies in the Middle East and No End of Conflict: Rethinking Israel-Palestine. Alpher speaks to Jeremy Rose.