Episodes
23 episodes, newest first.
- Ep. 24 Israel Just Voted. Get Ready to Vote Again. Why would towns on the front lines of three years of war vote for the government that led it? Daniella and Yossi Alpher look at what Israel’s October 27 election says about the country, from the loyalty of Netanyahu’s…
- Ep. 23 flydubai, October 7 and the Warnings Israel Ignored Over Yossi Alpher's desk hangs a parchment the Mossad gave him, quoting Ezekiel: if the watchman sees the sword coming and doesn't blow the trumpet, he answers for the blood. Why do surprise attacks succeed when the…
- Ep. 22 Middle East Conflict 101: From the Romans to October 7, Nobody Comes Out of This Looking Good Yossi Alpher is a Mossad veteran, and he doesn't spare Israel. He says the mistake of 1967 was not the conquest but staying, that Jerusalem was never really reunited, and that Netanyahu's government has backed settlers…
- Ep. 21 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…
- 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…
- Ep. 14 The Gofman Case: What Makes a Head of Mossad What 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. 13 Israel-Abu Dhabi: Iron Dome, lasers and IDF boots on the ground This week, Yossi and Daniella assess the real state of Iran's military capabilities after recent strikes, and what Israel's overblown assessments reveal about its chronic inability to define achievable war aims. They…
- Ep. 12 Israel’s Strategic Dead Ends In this episode of MESS, Daniella and Yossi Alpher step back from the headlines to examine a deeper problem: the repeated failure of Israeli strategy across multiple fronts. Going back to the idea of “mowing the lawn,”…
- Ep. 11 Mowing the Lawn, Not Winning the War Is this ceasefire the end of the war, or just the end of this round? Daniella and Yossi Alpher argue that the campaign against Iran looks less like decisive victory and more like mowing the lawn: inflicting damage…
- Ep. 10 A Heart Attack, Missile Alerts, and the Iran War In 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…
- Ep. 9 The Illusion of a New Middle East In this episode, Daniella and Yossi look past the daily headlines to examine the deeper strategic patterns shaping the Middle East. They discuss the hidden vulnerability of the Gulf states, the weakness of Lebanon in…
- Ep. 8 What Iran’s Strategy Gets Right and Wrong In this episode, Daniella and Yossi unpack a set of questions that go far beyond the current news cycle: why outside powers so often overestimate what the Kurds can deliver, how proxy relationships break down, what war…
- Ep. 7 From Dubai to Cyprus: how and why this war went regional Day 4 of the Iran–Israel–US war, and the arena is getting bigger by the hour. Daniella and Yossi break down what’s changed since the opening strikes: Iran’s push to regionalize the conflict across the Arabian Peninsula…
- Ep. 6 Day one of the US-Israel war on Iran Recorded remotely from Tel Aviv during repeated air-raid sirens, Daniella Alpher and veteran strategist Yossi Alpher unpack the first hours of a direct Israel–U.S. military campaign against Iran and Iran’s immediate…
- Ep. 5 Iran then and now: revolutionary uncertainty, assassinations and war Discussion focuses on the geopolitical implications of the US military deployment around Iran and the potential timing of a U.S. attack. Yossi recounts his role as Israel's chief intelligence analyst for Iran in the…
- Ep. 4 From intelligence to peacebuilding: what stabilization forces get wrong The discussion integrates a guest, a conflict resolution expert and visiting family member. He and Yossi discuss the link between intelligence, clandestine operations, and peacebuilding, emphasizing the credibility…
- Ep. 3 Between Iran, Oman, Yemen and Somaliland In this episode of the Middle East Sh#tshow, Yossi and Daniella move from the recent Iran-US negotiations in Oman to the historical and current geopolitical dynamics in the region. They touch on the Palestinian issue…
- Ep. 2 Iran escalation scenarios, Gaza ceasefire fragility, and the Kurdish question in Syria In their second pilot episode, Daniella and Yossi Alpher discuss Iran, Gaza and Syria. They focus on the potential for a U.S. attack on Iran, the impact on Israel, and the regional dynamics involving Saudi Arabia, the…