The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel
Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World Antony Loewenstein, 2023,
Verso Books/ Scribe Publications
Reviewed by Owen Hsieh, Jan. 9, 2024
“The economy abandoned oranges for hand grenades” - An
Army Like No Other: How the Israel Defence Forces Made a Nation – Haim
Bresheeth-Zabner
In May 31st of this year, Antony Loewenstein, an independent journalist from Australia wrote a history of the Israeli arms and surveillance industry examining how their products are ‘battle tested’ in Gaza and the West Bank and sold across the world.
The Palestine Laboratory was published only a few months prior
to Hamas’ Operation Al Aqsa Flood and Israel’s swift and brutal
response, which has been likened to a second Nakba. Loewenstein and The
Palestine Laboratory have since garnered a lot of public interest with the
title being catapulted to the best-seller list.
Israel is in the top ten weapons dealers in the world, its arms
exports surged in 2021 by 55% to be worth approximately US$11.3
Billion. The production and export of arms is Israel’s leading
export and a mainstay of its economy.
The state of Israel has repeatedly demonstrated it will sell weapons
to anyone who wants them, including pariah states such as: Apartheid South
Africa, Suharto’s Indonesia, or Chile under Pinochet. Israel has approved
every defence export since 2007 without exception.
The Israeli arms industry is guided by a philosophy
summed up by the former head of Israel’s Defence Export Control Agency, Eli
Pinko, quoted at a private conference in 2021:
“It’s either civil rights in some country or Israel’s
right to exist. I would like to see each of your face the dilemma and
say: ‘No, we will champion human rights in another country.’ Gentlemen it
doesn’t work.”
This can be understood by looking at Israel as playing
a role of minor partner for US Imperialism and as ‘sheriff’ for the
Middle East. Where the US has preferred covert support in lieu of public
backing, Israel has been able to act as its proxy and provide the material and
technical support to states in official disfavour.
“With Reagans war on communism, and Washington’s
partnering with right-wing death squads from Nicaragua to Honduras and El
Salvador to Panama, Israel’s role was viewed as indispensable in providing
both weapons and on-the-ground experience.”
“Israel Supported the police forces of Guatemala, El
Salvador and Costa Rica during the Cold War when the US Congress had
blocked the had blocked US agencies from officially doing so.”
Loewenstein has used WikiLeaks cables and a variety of
other sources to uncover information which highlights the role that
Israel has played in global politics, gaining insights and information that is
usually secreted and hidden from public oversight, subject to national security
censorship in Israeli state archives.
Loewenstein has taken many notes from the other
notable histories of the Israeli Defence Forces, including Rise and Kill
First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations by Ronen Bergman
and has catalogued a wealth of other information including the role of Israeli
military contractors in patrolling and monitoring European borders to
maintain Fortress Europe, and selling spyware such as Pegasus to some of
the world’s worst human rights abusers such as Bin Salman, the Crown Prince of
Saudi Arabia, who used Israeli software to track and murder the dissident voice
of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. These secondary narratives in The
Palestine Laboratory deserve a feature length history in and of
themselves.
