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.

Americans for Peace Now cautiously welcomes yesterday’s launch of the Joint US-Israel Strategic High-Level Dialogue on Technology. As announced in this summer’s Jerusalem US-Israel Strategic Partnership Joint Declaration, these talks are intended to establish a US-Israel technological partnership on critical and emerging technologies and solutions to global challenges. 

Twenty-two years ago, then-head of Israel’s opposition Ariel Sharon, escorted by a thousand Israeli police officers, provocatively visited Jerusalem’s Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif, igniting the second popular Palestinian uprising (the second intifada). This protracted armed conflict, which included brutal Palestinian terrorist attacks and ruthless Israeli operations to re-conquer the West Bank, caused more than 1,000 Israeli fatalities and more than 2,700 Palestinian fatalities. Thousands more were injured and hundreds of thousands traumatized.      

Americans for Peace now welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s endorsement of the two-state solution in his United Nations General Assembly speech and commends him for stating that peace is not an expression of weakness but rather “a victory of all that is good.”

A United Nations General Assembly speech by an Israeli prime minister, which focuses on peace and explicitly pledges to pursue peace, is a welcome and refreshing development.