The Palestine Laboratory (how Israel Exports The Technology Of Occupation Around The World)

By (author) Loewenstein Antony
Short description/annotation:
How Israel makes a killing from the Occupation.
Description:
Winner of the 2023 Walkley non fiction journalism prize
Finalist for the 2023 Moore Prize for Human Rights Writing

Israel''s military industrial complex uses the occupied, Palestinian territories as a testing ground for weaponry and surveillance technology that they then export around the world to despots and democracies. For more than 50 years, 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.

Best-selling journalist Antony Loewenstein, author of Disaster Capitalism, uncovers this largely hidden world in a global investigation with secret documents, revealing interviews and on-the-ground reporting. This book shows in-depth, for the first time, how Palestine has become the perfect laboratory for the Israeli military-techno complex: surveillance, home demolitions, indefinite incarceration and brutality to the hi-tech tools that drive the ''Start-up Nation''. From the Pegasus software that hacked Jeff Bezos'' and Jamal Khashoggi''s phones, the weapons sold to the Myanmar army that has murdered thousands of Rohingyas and drones used by the European Union to monitor refugees in the Mediterranean who are left to drown. Israel has become a global leader in spying technology and defence hardware that fuels the globe''s most brutal conflicts. As ethno-nationalism grows in the 21st century, Israel has built the ultimate model.
Table of contents:
Preface: The Gaza Laboratory

Introduction

1. Selling Weapons to Anybody Who Wants Them
2. September 11 Was Good for Business
3. Preventing an Outbreak of Peace
4. Selling Israeli Occupation to the World
5. The Enduring Appeal of Israeli Domination
6. Israeli Mass Surveillance in the Brain of Your Phone
7. Social Media Companies Don''t Like Palestinians
Conclusion

Acknowledgements
Further Reading
Notes
Index
Review quote:
Antony Loewenstein dissects how and why the Jewish state went all in on arming the world''s autocrats, from Viktor Orbán to Mohammed bin Salman-a dizzying but essential read.
Review quote:
Loewenstein connects the dots in this compelling, horrifying investigation. The Palestine Laboratory provides crucial context about the Israel-Hamas war, and the reality of life in the occupied Palestinian territories prior to October 7.
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A sad and sordid record of how "the light unto the nations" became the purveyor of the means of violence and brutal repression from Guatemala to Myanmar and wherever else the opportunity arose.
Review quote:
This is a must read on a hidden and shocking aspect of the Israeli colonisation of the Palestinians. We have waited long for such a book that exposes the way Israel uses its oppression of the Palestine to enhance its military and security industries. This book shows clearly that this kind of export is now Israel''s most significant contribution to the global violation of human rights...
Review quote:
A triumph of investigative journalism. It exposes the ruthlessness with which Israel exploits the experience gained from the illegal occupation to export all kinds of military hardware as well as the technology of surveillance, espionage, cyber warfare, phone-hacking, and house demolition. It also shines a torch on the dark side of Israel''s support for despots around the world. Altogether, a profoundly depressing audit on a country that used to boast of being "a light unto the nations".
Review quote:
Loewenstein''s acc