the palestine laboratory

How Israel exports the technology of occupation around the world.

An important note is, this book was published before the 7th of October 2023, but remains relevant today as Israel is in the worlds top ten arms exporters (9th) and has a population of only ten million people. ‘The Palestine Laboratory’ does read kind of dull, but has many layers to uncover like how did Israel become the strongest army in the Middle East? how does its military-industrial complex work? Its kind of a guide to Israel’s international affairs and its influence in the technology and arms industry. It’s a drawn-out read, but the information is packed together, I would recommend reading this book while you are very awake, and have a Google browser open, so you can google some facts for context.

Background

If you don’t know much about Israel, Its a small nation in the Middle East consisting of 10 million people, mostly Jewish. Israel’s ancient history is mostly known through the Hebrew Bible through Abraham who is known as the father of Judaism and then his two sons, Isaac is known as the father of Islam, and Ishmael who is known as the father of Christianity. In 931 BCE it was divided into two kingdoms Israel in the north and Judea in the south. The northern kingdom was mostly destroyed by the Assyrians in 722 BCE and then conquered by the Babylonians in 568 BCE. It was conquered by the Romans in 63 BCE and named Palestina after the Philistines living along the mediterranean coast.

Palestina was conquered by Muhammed during the early Islamic conquests during the 7th century. Later, from 1517 to 1917 was under the ottoman empire rule. later it was then under the rule of Great Britain until 1947 when it was given to the Jews. In 1917 the Balfour Declaration was written and was opposed by many Arab countries, as it backed the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, this kind of meant it was Great Britain’s responsibility to do administration for the Jewish homeland after WW2.

palestine- a testing ground

Loewenstein documents how Israel has transformed the Palestinian territories into a living laboratory for developing and perfecting a range of tools for population control and also to export to other nations. From facial recognition and drone technology to sophisticated surveillance systems such as Pegasus and Predator and crowd-control weaponry, Israel has become a global leader in exporting these tools to authoritarian regimes worldwide.

Is Palestine as a business model lucrative? probably. What kickstarted Israel as a mercenaryware exporter and developer? One of the factors was the US’s relationship with Israel, during the 1967 ‘six days’ war, Israel defeated the Arabs with no assistance from the US as they were preoccupied with Vietnam. The relationship between the two nations began to develop. The US was giving and selling plenty of weaponry to Israel and allowing Israelis to borrow from US banks at a lower interest rate. The US still provides about 3.8 billion a year in military aid to Israel.

One of the drawbacks of Israels technology advancements, is the countries their technology is deployed in. Their have been multiple reports showing the military support Israel provided to the Hutu regime during the Rwanda civil war, resulting in mass genocide, about 800,000 Tutsis killed in 100 days.As well, investigative journalist Thierry Cruvellier, alleges that Israel provided weapons and military training to the Rwandan government in the years leading up to the 1994 genocide, In his book ‘The Arms Fixer’.

Israel also supported the Argentinian dictatorship in 1982 according to classified British documents and provided them with arms during The Falklands war. Today Israel markets itself in intelligence, security, arms etc, but its ties with previous conflicts show that this was always going to happen.

nso group and elbit, ethical dilemmas

Israel is home to prominent surveillance technology and spyware developers. infamous products such as pegasus spyware created by NSO group has been found on multiple politicians, journalists, and prominent figures devices. Elbit, another well known Israeli company, sold spyware to russia in 2017, five years before the invasion. This meant in 2022 Israel ministry of defense refused to give licences to the NSO group to sell pegasus spyware to Estonia and Ukraine, fearing it would damage Israels relationship with Russia. Russia and Israels relationship has always been controversial.

“Israel’s constant drone surveillance over Gaza also impressed President Vladimir Putin. Moscow needed reliable surveillance drones after it lost many planes during its war in 2008 against Georgia in South Ossetia. Tbilisi had used Israeli drones, and years later Moscow decided to follow suit. Having seen Israeli operations over Gaza, Russia licensed the Israeli Aerospace Industries Searcher II, renamed “Forpost” by its new owners, and it became a key asset in Russian support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.33 Israel trained Russian pilots to operate the drones. Russia and Israel maintained a close relationship during the Syrian civil war despite the former supporting Assad and the latter worrying about the growing presence of Russian allies Iran and Hizbollah in the country. This led Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (and Naftali Bennett) to routinely attack Iranian and Syrian military positions in Syria to stop the transfer of weapons to Hizbollah. However, Moscow usually turned a blind eye to these attacks, assisted by a de-escalation hotline between the two governments.”

Elbit is critical to Israels military infrastructure and exports and NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware gives Israel leverage over other natons. Russia will allow Israel to go about its business un-interfered as long as Israel stays loyal when it comes to selling surveillanceware.

Elbit systems was established in 1966 just before the six day war, Nobody has actually mentioned whether or not they supplied anything in the six day war. But it is Israel largest supplier of equipment.

“Elbit, the biggest private arms manufacturer in Israel today. Established in 1966, it quickly became an essential supplier of equipment for Israeli tanks and aircraft. Years later it had become a major exporter of weapons to both democracies and despots, working closely with the US military and a host of other nations to develop a range of equipment, from drones to night vision googles and land surveillance systems to deadly high-tech munitions. Elbit is still today intimately tied to the Israeli security establishment, and has even moved into the book publishing industry.”

my personal opinion

Loewenstein’s perspective is really interesting, and I like the holistic view of Israel’s international affairs. I think many people view Israel as a destructive military nation, and the surrounding arabic countries as victims or rebels. It’s a complex ecosystem with many components.

Middle eastern conflict can result in mass destruction, and the displacement of many people. It can also result in the advancement of technology, whether or not that benefits us.

I found Loewenstein’s writing very packed, he kind of writes like me, just packing as many facts together, digressing often, I realised that is actually quite difficult to keep engaged with.