Middle East
Sh#tshow
A former Mossad analyst and his daughter on the Middle East: the strategy under the headlines, and the stories he can finally tell.
Latest episode · September 13, 2026
Everyone Has a Base at Bab al-Mandeb
The Houthis now control Bab al-Mandeb, which means they control whether Saudi oil leaves the Red Sea. Yossi Alpher has stood on that coastline. In 1981 he traveled through Somalia, visited Hargeisa and the port of Berbera, and interviewed President Siad Barre in his courtyard, where Barre, freshly abandoned by the Soviet Union, asked him what a country with no friends should do next. In this episode, we talk about…
The analyst
Yossi Alpher
Former Mossad operative and analyst, now in his eighties. In the late 1970s he was Israel's chief intelligence analyst for Iran. He has been thinking about this region professionally for longer than most of its current leaders have been in office.
The interviewer
Daniella Alpher
Tel Aviv tech executive and former news producer. She asks the questions, pushes back, and gets the Mossad stories out of him.
Start here
- Ep. 20Not My ZionismA listener in New York asked how Yossi became a Zionist, and what he makes of the word now. The answer starts in Washington D.C. in the mid-1950s, with a Jewish education in which the Holocaust took up two sentences and…
- Ep. 14The Gofman Case: What Makes a Head of MossadWhat does it take to lead the Mossad? In this episode, Daniella and Yossi Alpher trace the history of Israel’s intelligence leadership through stories of controversial appointments, unexpected successes, operational…
- Ep. 10A Heart Attack, Missile Alerts, and the Iran WarIn this episode, Daniella and Yossi Alpher record remotely in the middle of the war with Iran after Yossi suffers a mild heart attack and undergoes emergency catheterization under missile alerts. From the hospital, the…
Recent episodes
- Ep. 20 Not My Zionism A listener in New York asked how Yossi became a Zionist, and what he makes of the word now. The answer starts in Washington D.C. in the mid-1950s, with a Jewish education in which the Holocaust took up two sentences and…
- Ep. 19 Sixteen Tons of Concrete: What a Quiet August Actually Means August is quiet, and Yossi doesn't trust it. He and Daniella map the fronts: Syria's new president signaling accommodation over the Golan Heights, settler violence turning the West Bank into the region's real…
- Ep. 18 Every Front Is Quiet but One Gaza is quiet. Lebanon is quiet. Even Iran, from Israel's standpoint, is quiet. So why does the West Bank look like it's being set alight on purpose? Daniella and Yossi examine the fear that Netanyahu wants conflict…
- Ep. 17 The Iran Regime Change Fantasy Reports that the Mossad explored working with former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as part of an effort to change Iran’s leadership sound almost too extraordinary to be true. Daniella and Yossi examine the…
- Ep. 16 Hezbollah, Trump, and the Deal Israel Didn’t Get From Switzerland to southern Lebanon, this episode follows the chain linking the Iran deal, Hezbollah, Trump, Netanyahu, and Israel’s strategic isolation. Daniella and Yossi revisit the history of US-Israel ties, debate…
- Ep. 15 Who Gets Left Out of the Conversation? What happens when everyone talks about a conflict, but not with the people at the center of it? Daniella and Yossi Alpher discuss Israel’s exclusion from negotiations over a war it fought, think tanks that debate Israel…