The Palestine Laboratory
how Israel exports the technology of occupation around the world
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
WINNER OF THE 2023 WALKLEY BOOK AWARD
WINNER OF PEOPLE’S CHOICE AT THE VICTORIAN PREMIER’S LITERARY AWARDS 2024
Bestselling journalist Antony Loewenstein uncovers the widespread commercialisation and brutal deployment globally of Israel’s occupation-enforcing technologies.
For more than 50 years, the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has given the Israeli state invaluable experience in controlling an ‘enemy’ population, the Palestinians. It’s here that they have perfected the architecture of control, using the occupied Palestinian territories as a testing ground for weaponry and surveillance technology that they then export around the world.
The Palestine Laboratory shows in depth and for the first time how Israel has become a leader in developing spying technology and defence hardware that fuels some of the globe’s most brutal conflicts — from the Pegasus software that hacked Jeff Bezos’s and Jamal Khashoggi’s phones, and the weapons sold to the Myanmar army that has murdered thousands of Rohingyas, to the drones being used by the European Union to monitor refugees in the Mediterranean who are left to drown.
In a global investigation that uncovers secret documents, based on revealing interviews and on-the-ground reporting, Antony Loewenstein shows how, as ethno-nationalism grows in the 21st century, Israel has built the ultimate tools for despots and democracies.
Customer Reviews
Interesting but lacks balance
3.5 stars
The author’s thesis is that occupation of the West Bank and Gaza for more than 50 years has been a boon to Israel’s thriving weapons industry, both munitions and cyber spying, because it allows for in-house, real-world testing unavailable to manufacturers elsewhere. He provides some interesting, albeit somewhat selective, historical perspective on the development of Israel under David Ben Gurion and his successors along with numerous reports of the readiness of Israeli companies and even the government to deal with “ethnonationalists, autocrats and demagogues” in places like South Africa and South America, and more recently, the sale of Pegasus software to the Saudis that aided their targeting of journalist Jamal Khashoggi .
The details about “testing” in Gaza and the West Bank is mostly anecdotal. The use of Israeli made drones by China against the Uyghur in Xinjiang, or by the Burmese military against the Rohingya in Myanmar is highlighted, but there’s no mention of the testing or marketing practices of weapons makers in China or Russia.
Writing
Ms L is an experienced journalist. His style reflects this, although I felt at times that he was preaching to the converted.