Middle East
Sh#tshow
From Tel Aviv, a former Mossad official and his daughter talk about Middle East conflicts and strategies.
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 the courtyard of the presidential villa in Mogadishu, where Siad Barre, freshly abandoned by the Soviet Union, asked him what a country with no friends…
The analyst
Yossi Alpher
A consultant and writer on Israel-related strategic issues, Yossi Alpher is the author of the prize-winning Winners and Losers in the ‘Arab Spring’: Profiles in Chaos (Routledge, 2020); Periphery: Israel's Search for Middle East Allies and No End of Conflict: Rethinking Israel-Palestine (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015 and 2016, respectively).
Alpher served in the Israel Defense Forces as an intelligence officer, followed by service in the Mossad in operational and analytical roles. From 1981 to 1995 he was associated with the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, ultimately serving as director of the center. From 2001 to 2012 he was coeditor, with Ghassan Khatib, of the bitterlemons family of internet publications.
The interviewer
Daniella Alpher
A tech executive marketing cybersecurity and AI in the Israeli tech sector; formerly a television producer at ABC News in New York, making news segments for Good Morning America.
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…