CrossTalk | Who is the Alpha? 🦅🇮🇱 US-Israel Power Dynamics EXPOSED

2 days ago

🧠 Who truly leads—and who follows?
That’s the big question when it comes to the complex and often controversial U.S.-Israel relationship. Is Washington calling the shots? Or is Tel Aviv pulling the strings behind the scenes?

In this powerful episode of CrossTalk, host Peter Lavelle is joined by David Miller, Marco Carnelos, and Michael Scheuer to break down the realities behind the alliance.

📌 Topics explored:

🇺🇸 Does the U.S. fight wars for Israel?

🇮🇱 How powerful is the Israeli lobby in American politics?

🌍 Is Israel truly a geopolitical asset—or a costly partner?

🔍 What do past administrations and current events really reveal?

This isn’t your average debate—it’s a deep dive into the geopolitical alpha game that shapes global policy.

📺 Watch now to challenge the narrative and hear voices you won't find in the mainstream.
#CrossTalk #USIsraelRelations #MiddleEastPolitics #DavidMiller #MichaelScheuer
#MarcoCarnelos #Geopolitics #USForeignPolicy #IsraelLobby #PoliticalInfluence
#GlobalPower #WarDebate #TruthBehindTheNews #UncensoredDebate #RTNews
#IsraelPolitics #AmericanPolitics #MiddleEastStrategy #AlphaPolitics #DeepDive

Transcript

00:00Hello and welcome to Crosstalk, where all things are considered.

00:25I'm Peter Lavelle.

00:26Who leads?

00:27Who follows?

00:28This is often asked about the U.S.-Israel relationship.

00:31Do American administrations fight Israel's wars?

00:34Is the Israeli lobby all-powerful?

00:37And lastly, is Israel truly an American geopolitical asset?

00:50Crosstalking U.S.-Israel relations, I'm joined by my guest, Michael Scheuer in Virginia.

00:56He's a former head of the Bin Laden issue station at the CIA.

00:59In Bristol, we have David Miller.

01:01He is a former professor of sociology at Bristol University.

01:04And in Rome, we cross to Marco Cornelis.

01:07He is a former Italian diplomat as well as Middle East advisor of prime ministers.

01:11All right, gentlemen, Crosstalk rules and effect.

01:13That means you can jump any time you want, and I always appreciate it.

01:16Michael, let me go to you first.

01:17I mean, it's been debated for a long time, but particularly since the events of October 7th

01:24with the current genocide that is being committed against the Palestinians.

01:29Who leads and who follows in this relationship?

01:32The title of the program, after all, is called Who is the Alpha?

01:36Because there's a lot of countervailing evidence going in both directions.

01:40Your thoughts, Michael?

01:42Yeah, I don't think there should be much doubt about who runs the United States

01:46in terms of foreign policy and in terms of endless funding.

01:50It's the Israelis.

01:51And the proof of that is so abundantly clear that it's hard to imagine anyone believes that

02:02it's us behind them.

02:05Nothing that they want, I think, is necessary to the United States.

02:12They own the Congress, and they're proud of it.

02:15They announced that they can get the Congress to jump through hoops.

02:19And most of all, if you pointed toward any particular issue in the Middle East in the

02:25last 30 years or more, what could possibly have happened that was in our favor and would

02:35benefit the United States?

02:36I think the answer is zero.

02:38Then you can go into the whole IPAC, Southern Poverty Law Center, what's the other one?

02:51ADL, the Anti-Defamation League.

02:54They were the hired guns for Biden's Department of Justice to find out about those nasty Catholics

03:02who don't want abortion or to find out about people who don't like the Democrats.

03:10This is something that needs to be cleaned up, not to be examined any longer, in a sense.

03:16We've talked about it.

03:17I'll give you an example just very quickly.

03:19When I was a young boy, 8th, 9th, 10th grade, every year some Jewish organization would come

03:26in and show us a movie of the Holocaust.

03:32There's no other entity on this earth that gets access to our children until the fools

03:38we have in power now.

03:42To me, it's just beyond the pale to think that this is somehow a relationship in which

03:50the United States holds the whip hand.

03:54That's clearly not the case.

03:55Yeah, well, I'm still waiting for Netflix to come out with the Nakba series, but I will

04:01just keep, I will keep waiting.

04:03No, I think there have been 200 Holocaust films made since the 1980s.

04:07I came across that figure yesterday.

04:09David, the same question to you.

04:11I'm not going to debate and argue with Michael here, but, you know, just yesterday, the New

04:17York Times reported that Trump has decided not to attack Iran, which, of course, has

04:24been on top of Bibi Netanyahu's list for the past 30 years.

04:28How do you see this here?

04:30Because there's a confluence of interest.

04:32The U.S. wants to maintain hegemony in the Middle East and deny it to China and Russia.

04:37That is obvious.

04:38But it's also obvious that the United States is indifferent to genocide.

04:42Go ahead, David.

04:42Well, yes, I mean, people say that if you emphasize the power of the Israel lobby or

04:50the Zionist movement, that you're letting the U.S. off the hook.

04:55And you're saying that, you know, the U.S. would not do genocide if it wasn't for the

04:59Israelis.

05:00Now, of course, that's ridiculous.

05:01We've seen what the U.S. has done over the last 50 to 60 years, and everybody knows

05:07its record.

05:08But, of course, what Michael's saying has elements of being correct, I think, but it's

05:15not just a question of the lobby.

05:17I think what's important here is that when you think about the lobby and you think about

05:22the organizations that there are, Michael mentioned some of them, the ADL, for example,

05:27or APAC, and there are many more, that's not really the key element of Zionist power in

05:35the States, it seems to me, it's important, they have power, and they do lots of work,

05:39which, of course, allows them to have influence in Congress and all the data that we know about

05:44in relation to that.

05:46But there's something else which allows the Zionists to infiltrate and to have power in

05:52the U.S., and that is the infiltration of the apparatus of governance itself.

05:59So that's the Pentagon, that's the State Department, that's the Treasury Department, and, of course,

06:04the White House, too.

06:05So that's the way in which the Zionists are able to exercise power.

06:10And the reason for that is that people say, well, this is the U.S. doing this.

06:15The U.S. wouldn't do this unless it was in its own interest.

06:18But when you say the U.S. is doing this, what we're saying is that there are people inside

06:23these government departments who are actually Zionists, card-carrying Zionists, some of them,

06:28of course, dual citizens, but many more of them just people who believe in the interests

06:34of Israel above all.

06:36As Pat Buchanan once famously put it, it would be good if there was only dual loyalty.

06:43And that, of course, is the issue, that there's been a penetration of the U.S. political

06:48apparatus, and the same, I'm afraid, is true in Germany and in France and in the U.K. as

06:52well.

06:52And that's the way in which the power is exercised, in addition to the power of the Israel lobby.

06:57Now, you say the question about Iran, of course, there will be differences.

07:02And we've already seen through the last 18 months of genocide that there have been differences

07:05between what the Americans want to do and what the Israelis want to do.

07:09And, of course, part of what happens then is that the Israelis throw a hissy fit and they

07:14have the person who is their interlocutor in the U.S. government, including in Trump's

07:19administration, simply removed.

07:21We saw that just the other day, didn't we, when they went to speak to Hamas directly and

07:25the person who spoke to Hamas directly said, oh, yes, they were, you know, sensible guys.

07:30We need to deal with them.

07:32We can sort this out.

07:32And the next day, he was gone.

07:35He was fired.

07:35And that's the way in which the power works.

07:37But there will be differences of emphasis.

07:39And it may be that Trump doesn't want to attack Iran just yet.

07:43And the Israelis won't like that.

07:45Well, Marco, I think David just said it, just yet, OK, because Israel has gotten the wars

07:52that it's wanted in the Middle East for the last 30 years.

07:57Is it so easy to say who leads and who follows?

08:01Or is there a confluence of interests?

08:05Well, it's difficult to challenge what Michael and David just said.

08:10I would say that it's a sort of tango.

08:14Someone, one leads, sometimes is the other.

08:17I mean, it's dependent from a confluence of circumstances, as you said before.

08:23In the past, it was more related to the color of the American administration, Republicans, Democrats,

08:31there were different nuances, sometimes very relevant.

08:35Now, these nuances disappeared.

08:39So, basically, it's a big blob that is taking part on both sides of the American establishment.

08:48But I would frame the issue, not in the way, which is the country who leads who,

08:56but in a way, I would say, which is the establishment that is more influenced by the other.

09:02And to this question, I say, until the United States is the establishment that we know, as it is now,

09:10even if now is openly challenged by the president, at least it's challenged on certain issues,

09:18not yet on the Israel file, we are going to have that the upper hand is in the Israeli hand,

09:25because they are smarter.

09:28They are there, they have an agenda, and the American agenda sometimes changes with the administration.

09:34The Israelis, even if in the last 20 years, basically, we have always seen the same Israelis in charge,

09:41with due differences, there's no more difference today.

09:44So, from their point of view, the capability to influence the American establishment has been quite facilitated.

09:53As to the article you just mentioned of the New York Times,

09:58I have the sense that the more in the issue of who leads who,

10:02we should frame it in the for coming negotiations.

10:07Sometimes this kind of article are leaked deliberately by some people that is going towards a negotiation

10:16in order to send some signal, very strong signal, to the Iranians in this case,

10:22and to say, hey, we are going to negotiate, but listen, look at us.

10:28Last week, we rejected an Israeli attempt to bomb you.

10:33Maybe next time, we'll not be able to do it.

10:35Well, Marco, what you're saying, Marco, is that, you know,

10:39it's a matter of timing when such a thing is going to happen.

10:42I mean, we have this bluster coming out of the White House.

10:45It may be just part of Trump's madman theory of negotiating.

10:51It's very hard to say.

10:53Michael, let me go back to you.

10:54I mean, some interesting polls here.

10:58Pew came out with a poll.

10:59Fifty-three percent of all adults have a negative view of Israel.

11:04This is including GOP voters.

11:07This is part even Trump voters.

11:09It's really quite extraordinary.

11:10We also had a Gallup poll saying more or less the same thing.

11:16So it's not an outlier here.

11:18But at the same time, you have standing ovation.

11:20I think Netanyahu spoke for 58 minutes, and he got 56 standing ovations.

11:24Michael.

11:26Yeah, well, I think it goes to show that—and I misspoke or didn't speak enough.

11:31I entirely agree with the idea that the entire—at least the defense and intelligence community

11:37and the Treasury are completely infiltrated, as the gentleman said, by the Israelis.

11:46It's a situation where we are—you know, Washington was very concerned, our first president,

11:52that someday the basic greed of Americans would overthrow the country

11:57because they can't resist becoming more rich than they are.

12:02And I think that's a big weakness for the United States.

12:05The other weakness we have, we share with Europe, is that we've pampered, coddled, and

12:10cried for the Israelis whenever they demanded it since World War II.

12:16You know, if there's a country in the world that can be described—or a government in the

12:20world that can be described as a government of punks, it's the Israeli government.

12:25We sit here and watch them kill innocents.

12:28We kill—and we do the same thing.

12:30The point we made very well—

12:31Michael, I have to go to a hard break.

12:33I'll come back to you when we return from our break.

12:35Gentlemen, after that short break, we'll continue our discussion on U.S.-Israel relations.

12:39Stay with our team.

12:48Welcome back to Crosstalk, where all things are considered.

12:50I'm Peter LaBelle.

12:51To remind you, we're discussing the U.S.-Israel relationship.

12:54Okay, Michael, I want to go back to you.

13:05I hate interrupting people when they're making a point, but when I have a hard break, I have

13:08a hard break.

13:09So continue, please.

13:11Yeah, all I was trying to say is that there is no reason at this date and time for anyone

13:18to give the Israelis a break because of the Holocaust, and it's no longer something you

13:23should hold over everybody's head if they dare to question the illegal activities of

13:28the Israelis in our government and other places.

13:31It's a time—the time is over for that, primarily because—not because of the elapse of time, but because the Israelis have

13:41shown they have no more respect for life than the advocates of the Holocaust, they haven't

13:49been able to do it in such numbers, but they would if they could.

13:52Well, Michael, they're not bashful about doing it, either.

13:58At least the perpetrators of the Holocaust tried to hide it.

14:02What we see on social media is gleeful, egregious death right in front of our eyes at the touch

14:12of a phone.

14:13It's really quite extraordinary.

14:14David, you know a lot about this.

14:16One of the most disturbing—you know, most—okay, I can't speak about the U.K.

14:20or maybe Europeans, how much they're aware of foreign affairs and what is done in their

14:24name, but Americans are just—just not very well informed, and I think that's by design.

14:29You know, we had Pete Heggs on Fox News talking about Iran and the bomb, but the presenter,

14:37she couldn't ask the question, well, what about Israel's bomb?

14:40See, you can't say that in broadcast TV.

14:42It just can't, okay?

14:44I don't—she probably doesn't even know it, okay?

14:46But, you know, what—I came from academia.

14:49I remember all of the taboos.

14:52I knew how you would get into trouble.

14:54This was one of them, but not to the degree that it is today.

14:57David.

14:59Well, it's a taboo.

15:02I mean, I think maybe you could take a thought experiment.

15:08You know, when we talk about the Israel lobby and about the Zionist movement and its influence

15:12in the U.S., we don't think about it the other way.

15:14We don't think about, you know, in the U.K. lobby in Israel or the U.S. lobby in Israel.

15:20Who are the U.S. lobbyists making sure that the proxy, which Israel is supposed to be for U.S. imperialism, is carrying out U.S. interests?

15:30Well, when you start to ask that question, it already becomes ridiculous.

15:34I mean, the only real way in which the U.S. lobbies in Israel is through covert funding for some of the pressure groups who have been protesting against Netanyahu, which was done under Biden.

15:47And that, of course, some money went into some of that stuff.

15:49But that's the only real U.S. lobby that there is in Israel.

15:55There's no attempt to actually influence the body politic of the so-called state of Israel.

16:01Whereas, of course, we know through the Foreign Agents Act, the Registration Act, through the Lobbying Disclosure Acts at the federal level in the U.S.,

16:09we know that there are millions and millions of dollars spent by direct lobbyists for Israel and, of course, by their proxies, by the Zionist movement groups throughout the country.

16:19So when you start to ask that comparison, what is the role of the U.K. in influencing Israeli government policy?

16:27Well, it's nil. It's less than nil.

16:29What is the role of the Israelis in influencing U.K. government policy?

16:32Well, it's very, very significant.

16:35The U.K., for example, is flying more than half of all surveillance flights over Gaza and Lebanon and the rest of Palestine.

16:44They're doing more surveillance flights for Israel than the Israelis are doing for themselves.

16:51Now, that's not the influence of the U.K. on Israel.

16:53It's just the opposite way around.

16:55So I think that's the key question.

16:57Why is it that after all these years and the 200 Holocaust movies, et cetera, that we're still deferring on almost everything to the interests of the Zionists?

17:07It's just incredible.

17:09And, of course, what people don't see is that not only are the Israelis showing that they are gleeful, as you said, about death, destruction, rape, torture,

17:18and the horrors of snipers deliberately shooting three-year-olds in the head on a mass basis,

17:26it's not only that we've come to know that that's what they're doing, but people don't have any real conception that they are planning what they call a greater Israel.

17:35And, of course, that includes Egypt and it includes Lebanon and Iraq and Syria and part of Turkey, if they could have it.

17:43But there's no conception that that's what's happening here.

17:46And I think what we see, you know, in terms of geopolitics, is we see that Israel is trying to make itself a regional hegemon in West Asia or the Middle East.

17:58With American—see, this is the confluence issue that I tried to bring up earlier.

18:03The Americans don't have a problem with that, okay?

18:06And because they don't have a problem with that, they don't have a problem with ethnic cleansing and genocide.

18:11Because in a broad sense, it is serving American interests in the region.

18:16How they make the sausage doesn't bother presidents of the United States, which is very shameful.

18:21Marco, I mean, one of the other things that's interesting to me, it's kind of a form of Western Orientalism.

18:28I mean, these people that settled modern state Israel, they're from Eastern Europe.

18:33They're white people.

18:34They're Europeans.

18:35And they have a colonial experiment.

18:38The West sees themselves in them.

18:40Well, it's quite incredible, in a way, to see that what were supposed Jews coming from Eastern Europe,

18:50the ones that were under the most strict rules and in a way more arrested during the period of the Cold War,

19:00came to Israel and became the most ardent supporter of Zionism.

19:07And this is something that not only from Eastern Europe, but also from Russia.

19:11Because there are millions and millions of Jews coming from Russia that today are among the ones who not only are, let me say that.

19:19They're in the West Bank, they're in the West Bank, yes.

19:22Yeah, but they have a capability to influence not only the former countries where they're coming from, the United States, et cetera,

19:31but they were able to influence also what are the leadership in Eastern Europe today,

19:36and to a certain extent, also the leadership in Russia today.

19:41Because I've always watched that in terms of Palestinian issue, Russia was also very clear about the rights of the Palestinians to self-determination,

19:53to see their rights recognized.

19:55But at the same time, I always watch also Russia very, very careful not to alienate Israel on certain other issues,

20:03for example, Syria, where we have been watching that Israel could bomb Syria very, very easily,

20:11bombing Russia's allies in Syria, and I didn't see one single finger lift from Russia in order to say to the Israeli,

20:21you have to stop to bomb our allies in Syria.

20:25So it's not only the capability they have to influence the United States,

20:30and in the case of the United States, they had to make, at least 40 years ago, a big change,

20:37because we should consider the Israeli influence in the United States before the Pollard affair,

20:45I'm sorry to step in about this Michael environment,

20:48but until the Pollard case, the Israelis had a very good arrangement in terms of intelligence,

20:53at the technical level, when the Pollard affair exploded in 1985, if I am not wrong,

21:01Israel had to change completely its way to influence the American system.

21:06It was not enough to influence the technical level, the government level, the agency.

21:12They had to go up because for a long time, I know from certain reliable search,

21:17but Michael can tell me that I'm wrong, but at the level of intelligence in the United States,

21:26there was a big reluctance to cooperate again with Israel, considering the betrayal they suffered.

21:32Well, speaking of betrayal...

21:33So they had to go in the political level, and they started to do what they do in Congress,

21:38in a far more effective way, in order to make that is the political level,

21:43that is going to tell to intelligent level, what they should tolerate and do with Israel.

21:48Yes, well, they've done a very good job, the lobby of infiltrating Congress.

21:52Actually, if you go to the gray zone, there is a recording of officials bragging about how they have Congress in their pocket.

21:59Michael, but there are points in the U.S.-Israel relationship that powers that be do not want to talk about.

22:08The U.S., that's Liberty, for example.

22:12Peter, we just had the gentleman on, Mr. Turney, to talk about that on our podcast,

22:17and it was an extraordinarily gory, terrible situation.

22:23Three different waves of attacks on that ship, and the president himself, Lyndon Johnson,

22:31stopped the aircraft carriers from sending help to the Liberty.

22:35It almost sank.

22:35But it's very, very typical.

22:39And the gentleman just talked about intelligence.

22:42The intelligence community is as much controlled by the Israelis as are the political side,

22:49whether it's Treasury, the State Department, or anything else.

22:53We move in sync with what the Israelis want.

22:57And I really, I hope it's not the case that anyone in the United States thinks that the Israelis can provide some kind of a block against the Russians and the Chinese.

23:10They're there.

23:11We're not.

23:12And we don't have the capability to do it ourselves.

23:17And the Israelis, sooner or later, are going to take it in the chops just because of what they've done over the past 70 years.

23:24It's a very, very difficult situation.

23:26No one wants to see them disappear, but, I mean, Israel has cost the world an enormous amount of blood and money.

23:33Well, yeah, I mean, but not only that, but, David, all of us, by talking about it and those that are aware of it, all of us are culpable to one degree or another because we are aware of it.

23:44We talk about it, and I think that there should be more pushback because this genocide that is being committed, the West is culpable because it's not stopping it.

23:57You're exactly right, and I think what you really have to do is look to the media.

24:01Yes.

24:01You have to have a media that reports the truth and not what they think that will please their payers, their funders.

24:09Yeah, I mean, I think the West is more than culpable.

24:11I mean, the West is actually directly involved in the genocide.

24:16The Americans provide some 70-odd percent of the weaponry.

24:21The Germans are about 29 percent.

24:24Most of the intelligence support is being given by the U.K.

24:27So these are directly involved.

24:29All of the Arab states who are complicit are also involved.

24:34The Qataris are involved, the Saudis, the UAE, and others as well.

24:38So there's a lot of complicity, and it's not just that they're not doing anything to stop it.

24:45They're actually deliberately fostering and helping to carry out the genocide.

24:50But when you say pushback, look, there's been lots of pushback by public opinion, but that's never going to make any difference.

24:56Well, I mean, on that very sore point here, a former president said elections have consequences, and I kind of hoped that would be true in the last election cycle.