The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World - Antony Loewenstein
Published in 2023 by Verso, London, UK and New York, NY
320 pages
ISBN: 9781922310408
Over the past twenty-one months, we have witnessed Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza and its people. At the time of writing this review, Gaza health officials estimate that around 55,000 Palestinians have been killed since Oct. 7, 2023, with half of that total being women and children. Many more are unaccounted for, as they remain trapped under rubble or are in areas that are inaccessible to medics. Every university in Gaza has been utterly destroyed and nearly every hospital has likewise been rendered inoperable. The few available hospitals are overwhelmed with patients, many of whom are missing limbs from missile strikes. Widespread hunger has gripped the Gazan people as humanitarian aid has been largely cut off, and over half a million people (about 25% of the population) are facing acute malnutrition and starvation (including over 60% of children). After over 40,000 missile strikes from Israel, there also remain around 4,000 unexploded munitions, turning houses and rubble into landmines, which will remain a problem long into the future.
While the world looks on in abject horror at the genocide occurring in Gaza, some industrial sectors have profited from the ongoing attacks and mass death. War and apartheid, for these companies, are good for business. Over the past several decades, the Israeli defense, arms, and surveillance industries have repeatedly utilized their brutal oppression of the Palestinian people to market their goods, often exporting their weapons and technology to other nations across the globe. It goes to show that what happens in Palestine will not simply stay in Palestine.
In his 2023 book, The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World, journalist Antony Loewenstein provides a provocative and deeply researched exposé of how Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestine has evolved into a global business model. Drawing on a wealth of investigative journalism, Loewenstein explores the many ways that Israel utilizes their occupation of Gaza and the West Bank to demonstrate a wide array of military munitions, surveillance technology, and policing techniques. He documents how surveillance, crowd-control, and biometric technologies, tested on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, are exported globally as “field-tested” solutions for domestic dissent, border control, and authoritarian governance.
Overview:
Loewenstein argues that Israel has used the Palestinian territories as a testing ground for surveillance, military, and control technologies, which are then exported globally to authoritarian regimes, democracies, and private corporations under the banner of "combat-tested" or "field-proven" systems. He delves into how Israel's military-industrial complex works closely with private companies, government agencies, and international security firms to produce cutting-edge surveillance and security technologies, such as surveillance drones, biometric systems, spyware (such as Pegasus), crowd control weapons, and sophisticated data collection systems.
These technologies, initially developed to monitor and control Palestinians in the occupied territories, are now sold to a wide range of authoritarian regimes, democracies, and corporations, effectively creating a global market for "security solutions" rooted in human rights abuses. Loewenstein argues that Israel has transformed its decades-long occupation of the Palestinian people into a lucrative and influential model for these global security regimes. From the militarized US–Mexico border to biometric control systems in India and spyware used to silence dissidents from Saudi Arabia to Hungary, Israeli-developed technologies, tested and refined in Palestine, now dominate the global surveillance market.
Loewenstein also examines the ethical implications of this trade, arguing that Israel's export of occupation technologies has allowed it to profit from its ongoing violation of Palestinian rights while simultaneously enabling other governments to implement similar tactics of repression. Israeli firms like NSO Group have sold spyware to countries accused of human rights violations. Countries like the United States, India, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Hungary, and others have adopted these technologies, often in the context of managing dissent, monitoring populations, or strengthening border controls within their own borders. This technology is often used to target journalists, migrants, dissidents, and political opponents.
Loewenstein critiques both the Israeli government's role in this enterprise and the complicity of global actors in perpetuating systems of oppression. He also highlights the resistance movements that oppose the spread of these technologies and calls for greater awareness of the human rights violations that underlie this global trade in surveillance and control. He offers a compelling investigation into how Israel has turned its experience of occupation into a profitable export, with global implications for civil liberties, surveillance, and human rights. As such, his work challenges readers to reconsider the intersection of technology, geopolitics, and human rights in the 21st century.
Deeper Dive:
In the Introduction, Loewenstein provides details regarding his own political trajectory toward becoming an atheist, anti-Zionist Jew. Growing up in Melbourne to a secular Jewish family, Loewenstein describes his upbringing as a self-described “soft Zionist,” where support for the state of Israel as a safe haven for the Jewish people was an assumed expectation. Yet, upon visiting Israel for the first time, Loewenstein became disillusioned with this Zionist vision, as he witnessed the apartheid regime that dominates the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. He describes how his time living in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem sparked his interest in how Palestinians are surveilled and policed by the Israeli state.
In the First Chapter, Loewenstein examines Israel's extensive arms trade, highlighting its willingness to sell weapons to various regimes, regardless of their human rights records. Loewenstein traces the origins of Israel's arms industry, noting that it began with reparations from West Germany following the horrors of the Holocaust and the Second World War, which then expanded through covert operations and strategic alliances. He emphasizes Israel's role in arming authoritarian regimes and coups throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, as well as its use of the occupation of Palestine as a proving ground for its military technologies.
In Chapter Two, Loewenstein explores how the events of September 11, 2001, provided a significant boost to Israel's defense industry. The global "War on Terror" led to increased demand for surveillance and counter-terrorism technologies, many of which were developed and tested in the occupied Palestinian territories. Thus, as Loewenstein writes, “Israel has thus embraced the ‘war on terror’ and richly profited from it” (52). He discusses how Israel capitalized on this demand, strengthening its alliances with Western nations and further embedding its technologies in global security infrastructures. He also highlights the increasing privatization of the occupation, as surveillance companies such as AnyVision (later renamed Oosto), Corsight AI, the Blue Wolf app, and Smart Shooter utilize AI technology to gather biometric information, such as facial recognition, which is utilized to monitor and police the Palestinian population.
Chapter Three delves into Israel's strategic interests in maintaining the status quo of occupation. He highlights how social media is weaponized by the IDF, as they “link the Jewish state’s operations with Western values, or at least those policies supporting a militarized response to terrorism (or resistance, depending on your perspective), hoping to engender it to global audiences” (74). Loewenstein argues that peace initiatives and protests against the occupation are often undermined by Israel’s policies and suppressed by brutal actions that serve to actively perpetuate the occupation, such as settlement expansion and military operations. Loewenstein suggests that these actions are not only politically motivated but also economically beneficial, as they ensure the continued demand for Israel's military technologies, with defense contractor companies Elbit Systems and Xtend manufacturing state-of-the-art drones that are exported across the globe.
In Chapter Four, Loewenstein discusses how Israel markets its occupation as a model for other nations facing internal dissent or external threats. He highlights the export of surveillance technologies, border control systems, and military tactics to countries like India, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia. He also discusses the utilization of Hebron drones by the EU border agency Frontex in the Mediterranean to monitor the movement of migrants, militarize the borders, and deter new arrivals. These drones, unsurprisingly, were used to monitor the movement of Palestinians for many years before being exported across the globe. Loewenstein underscores how Israel's experience in managing occupied populations is leveraged as expertise for global security solutions.
He also discusses Germany’s unwavering support for the Israeli state, despite the widespread growth of anti-Semitism and the resurgence of far-right parties within Europe. As the EU is entrenching its support for Israel, it is risking losing legitimacy in the eyes of Western European nations, whose citizens are souring on their view of Israel in light of the genocide in Gaza. This has led a faction of the far-right to support Israel and its “ethnonationalism and uncompromising stance against Islam and refugees” (116). Furthermore, the war in Ukraine has also shown EU nations strengthening their ties to Israel, as they have sought to purchase billions of dollars in military equipment from Israeli companies.
Chapter Five examines the global appeal of Israel's model of control, which combines military strength with technological innovation. Loewenstein discusses how authoritarian regimes and democracies alike are drawn to Israel's approach to governance and security, as he highlights Israel’s historic connection and collaboration with apartheid South Africa. He also draws connections and parallels to Modi’s Hindu nationalist policies against Kashmiris in India, China’s technologically advanced repression of the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, and the policing of migrants along the US/Mexico border. Loewenstein addresses the ethical implications of this global adoption of Israel's methods, particularly concerning human rights and civil liberties.
In Chapter Six, Loewenstein delves into the realm of digital surveillance, focusing on Israeli companies like NSO Group and AnyVision. He details how these companies develop and export phone-hacking technologies such as Pegasus spyware and other facial recognition systems such as Paragon, which are often weaponized and tested on Palestinians before being exported to other countries, such as Mexico, Morocco, Rwanda, Hungary, Uganda, Togo, India, Spain, the UAE, and (most infamously) Saudi Arabia. While Pegasus has come under closer scrutiny in recent years due to a litany of scandals and abuses, Loewenstein also highlights lesser-known Israeli surveillance companies, such as Cellebrite, which has been used to spy on political dissidents and journalists. He discusses the global proliferation of these technologies and their use in monitoring and controlling populations, raising concerns about privacy and state overreach.
The Seventh Chapter explores the relationship between Israel and major social media platforms. Loewenstein highlights instances where content critical of Israel or supportive of Palestinians has been suppressed or removed by companies such as Meta, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, and TikTok. He points out the double standard that has been applied, especially compared to content regarding the war in Ukraine, as well as these companies allowing actual anti-Semitism and genocide denial to spread rapidly across their platforms. As he writes, “What this means in practice, especially for groups without serious political influence in Western capitals including the Palestinians, is to fight back against being little more than a way to make huge amounts of money for big tech firms” (205). As such, he discusses the role of these Silicon Valley-based social media companies in shaping pro-Israel narratives and the implications of pro-Palestinian censorship for free expression and the dissemination of accurate information.
Finally, in his Conclusion, Loewenstein considers the future of this Israeli military complex, as the worsening climate will undoubtedly fuel increasing levels of immigration, thus provoking increasingly reactionary and militant policing and surveillance of national borders. He raises fears regarding the ethnic cleansing of Palestine as Israel continues to expand its borders and provoke conflicts in the region. Yet, he sees small glimmers of hope in international campaigns to divest from Israeli companies and isolate them due to their incessant human rights abuses. He believes that Israel is rapidly turning itself into a pariah nation and that this trend will continue unless it radically alters its behavior and defense policies.
Commendations:
The Palestine Laboratory possesses many notable strengths. First of all, as a piece of investigative journalism, this book is filled with empirical examples of Israel’s exportation of technologies that have been tested during the occupation. Loewenstein lucidly documents how occupation technologies become global commodities, tracing the journey of Israeli firms like NSO Group (makers of Pegasus spyware), Elbit Systems, and AnyVision from the checkpoints of the West Bank to the smartphones of journalists and activists in the Global North and South alike.
I also deeply appreciated Loewenstein’s inclusion of personal narratives within this volume. By highlighting the voices and experiences of citizens, lawyers, and journalists who live in and fight against these technologies of oppression, Loewenstein adds a humanitarian touch to his journalistic account. In his litany of examples, Loewenstein provides a vital materialist insight into how occupation technologies become globalized, as well as how colonial domination becomes the foundation for capital accumulation and geopolitical leverage.
The core argument Loewenstein advances is clear and compelling: Israel has used the occupied Palestinian territories as a laboratory for perfecting systems of control, repression, and surveillance. These systems are then marketed internationally, often to regimes with poor human rights records, including India, the UAE, Brazil, and Hungary. As Loewenstein argues, “Every time Israel attacks Gaza, the stock prices of its weapons manufacturers rise” (p. 15). Loewenstein exposes the ways in which Gaza becomes a testing ground, not simply for drones and munitions, but also for algorithmic control, facial recognition systems, and digital censorship tools. The book is particularly adept at illustrating how Israel has positioned itself as a “solutions provider” for the global war on terror, border militarization, and digital authoritarianism.
Loewenstein’s scathing critique of Israel’s tech sector aligns neatly with emerging scholarship on surveillance capitalism, racialized security logics, and the political economy of control. The framing of Gaza and the West Bank as “laboratories” fits within what Jasbir K. Puar has called the “right to maim,” as well as Achille Mbembe’s concept of “necropolitics,” both of which describe a form of politics where domination is achieved not only through death, but through incapacitation, mass debilitation, biometric categorization, and algorithmic control. He also echoes critiques offered by Ruha Benjamin’s Race After Technology and Harsha Walia’s Border and Rule, though without explicitly engaging these scholars. Where those authors provide the conceptual architecture of surveillance and racial capitalism, Loewenstein provides empirical breadth through his extensive case studies and firsthand reporting. He shows how the colonial condition of Palestine is not an aberration, but rather a key site in the architecture of contemporary empire.
I also deeply appreciate Loewenstein’s international outlook, as he situates Israel’s high-tech dominance within broader structures of global capitalism, militarism, and racialized security governance. Loewenstein avoids exceptionalizing the Israeli case. Instead, he globalizes the Palestinian experience, showing how Israel’s occupation is not merely contained to activities in Gaza and the West Bank, but rather also buttresses other national regimes of control through economic-technological entanglements. He connects Palestine to India-administered Kashmir, U.S.-Mexico border policing, and the EU’s Fortress Europe strategy, showing how the condition of the Palestinians can be utilized as a universal call to emancipation and dignity.
Critiques:
On the other hand, Loewenstein's account has a few key weaknesses. First, while its content is undoubtedly important, the organization of this volume is a bit scattered. Loewenstein lays out an overwhelming barrage of facts within such a short amount of space, and it often strays far from the central point and becomes overly repetitive. Unfortunately, a couple of sections are littered with typos and grammatical errors, which occasionally make it read like a first draft. As such, the book could have been more tightly edited to focus Loewenstein’s analysis and organize it more coherently, whether linearly or thematically.
Additionally, while Loewenstein’s thesis that Palestine serves as an experimental testing ground for Israeli military exports is sound, a majority of the book is dedicated to how these technologies are exported. Rather than focusing on how these technologies are utilized against the Palestinian population, Loewenstein instead almost entirely centers the narrative thrust of the book on how these exports support authoritarian regimes around the world. While this is a completely acceptable thing to do, I was expecting more about how Palestinians have been subjected to and attempt to resist these technologies of domination.
Also, while the book’s journalistic style makes it accessible and widely readable, more seasoned readers may find its lack of conceptual rigor or engagement with theory limiting. Loewenstein’s account is almost entirely descriptive rather than analytical, which leads to some rather dry writing. Adding some deeper analysis could have made Loewenstein’s argument more robust. For example, while Loewenstein deftly tracks the spread of Israeli-made technologies across repressive regimes, he pays insufficient attention to how these tools interface with global ideologies of technological determinism and neoliberal security. The problem is not just Israel exporting repressive tech. Rather, it is also tied to the global capitalist desire for techno-solutions that manage, rather than resolve, structural inequalities and dissent. This is a space where a deeper engagement with critical theory would have enriched the book. What the book lacks in theoretical depth, however, is compensated for in narrative accessibility, ensuring that the core arguments reach beyond the narrow corridors of academia.
Additionally, while Israel’s exporting of military and surveillance technology has had horrific consequences around the globe, Loewenstein sometimes centers Israeli agency to such a degree that it downplays the complicity of global capitalist systems, especially the U.S., EU, and Big Tech. Colonial violence must be understood not as the exceptional behavior of one state but as a function of the global legal, political, and economic international order itself. Loewenstein touches on the complicity of the United States and Europe but does not delve into the systemic architecture of international law and multilateral governance that makes such exports viable.
Consequently, Israel appears almost in isolation, when in reality, it operates as a node within an expansive network of militarized global capitalism, primarily as a client state serving the interests of the United States in the Middle East. A deeper interrogation of how Israel is nested within the transnational networks of security capitalism and imperial law would have added some necessary complexity. Loewenstein could have better contextualized Israel as functioning within a U.S.-led imperial order, rather than as a sui generis exporter of repression.
Finally, while the book is about the impact on Palestinians, Loewenstein underrepresents Palestinian voices and resistive agency. While Loewenstein is clearly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, most of the human interest stories in the work are from the perspective of Israeli human rights activists, journalists, and lawyers. While this makes sense due to Loewenstein’s available social networks, Palestinians themselves are often, by consequence, positioned as passive subjects of violence, rather than active resisters or knowledge producers. This is a significant oversight since Palestinians have long engaged in practices of refusal, counter-surveillance, and discursive disruption, even in the most digitally and physically restricted environments.
As such, Loewenstein’s analysis would have been enriched by integrating Palestinian scholarship, digital rights advocacy, and grassroots resistance strategies. By highlighting how Palestinians resist, repurpose, or subvert the very systems deployed to control them, from social media activism to open-source intelligence counter-surveillance from social media activism to open-source intelligence counter-surveillance, the book could have emphasized the active agency of Palestinians, rather than merely serving as passive victims of violence. This absence is symptomatic of a larger issue in progressive scholarship: an unintentional re-inscription of colonial hierarchies through the marginalization of indigenous knowledge.
Conclusion:
Overall, The Palestine Laboratory is a deeply researched and urgent investigation into how Israel has turned its decades-long occupation of Palestine into a global business model. While it may be a bit disorganized, lacks theoretical engagement, and underrepresents Palestinian resistance, Loewenstein’s journalistic prowess makes this work a valuable and urgent exposé that contributes meaningfully to understanding the global circulation of colonial violence through technology. Loewenstein’s journalistic clarity makes the book accessible to broad audiences and opens up essential conversations about how colonial violence is embedded in and profited from by global security regimes.
The book serves as an accessible gateway into the study of the global afterlives of occupation, and it deserves a place in classroom syllabi and activist toolkits alike. Loewenstein's work is a vital entry point into interrogating the role of Israel in arming some of the most oppressive regimes across the globe. What is currently happening in Palestine will have ripple effects across the world, as JT Chapman put it, “Whatever happens to Palestinians now will eventually happen to you.” As such, the book should be widely read by policymakers, students, journalists, and scholars alike, as we all work collectively to fight for the emancipation and dignity of the Palestinian people.