Antony Loewenstein's Blog, page 17

Palestinians are guinea pigs to export oppressive weapons and technology globally

AJ+ is an arm of Al Jazeera English and publishes hugely popular short videos on issues of the day.

I was interviewed about my book, The Palestine Laboratory, and how Israel finds many global buyers for its “battle-tested” weapons and surveillance tech:

 

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Oppression in Gaza is an example to many countries, says Australian journalist

My book, The Palestine Laboratory, was recently released in a Brazilian translated edition.

Here’s my interview with the Brazilian outlet, Brasil de Fato, about it along with the Brazilian state’s complicity with Israel over many decades:

Oppression in Gaza is an example to many countries, says | Geral

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India’s Telegraph newspaper praises The Palestine Laboratory

My book, The Palestine Laboratory, was recently released in an Indian edition.

Here’s a wonderful review in the large Indian newspaper, Telegraph, that understands the book well:

This book by the independent journalist, Antony Loewenstein, predates the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel by a few months. But Tel Aviv’s response is proving the author right in real-time. The Palestine Laboratory unveils in eye-opening detail how Israel has, over the past decades, turned the West Asia crisis into an opportunity and made its “architecture of control” a global export that insulates Tel Aviv from opprobrium. Sample this: “Selling the NSO Group phone-hacking tool Pegasus and a host of other high-tech weaponry is the kind of arms policy that ensures alliance and friendship whether from authoritarian or democratic states.’’ The rest of the world, including the United States of America, appears helpless in the face of Israel’s relentless campaign in Gaza — what Loewenstein bills as “‘battle testing’ of weapons on Palestinians’’.

Citing declassified documents and threading together details available in the public domain, Loewenstein writes that many of these countries take the moral high ground about nations like India buying Russian oil and contributing to Putin’s war in Ukraine but have kept Israel’s coffers full through the occupation — “Israel is a key player in the EU battle to both militarise its borders and deter new arrivals, a policy that hugely accelerated after the massive influx of migrants in 2015, principally due to the wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Loewenstein’s book also explains how Israel has managed to not only maintain the occupation but also turn it into a business opportunity. After the Six-Day War in 1967, “militarism became the country’s guiding principle and it’s lived with it ever since; ending the conflict with the Palestinians is bad for business…’’ According to the author, even though Israel portrays itself as an island of democracy in a region ruled by autocrats, Tel Aviv has sold weapons and surveillance technology to repressive regimes across the globe, including Guatemala, El Salvador, Myanmar and even Iran under the Shah.

In a way, the book explains Israel’s response to October 7 as more than just retribution. The October 7 attack caught Israel unawares despite all the surveillance technology at its disposal and the encirclement of Gaza with a 65 km high-tech border that includes radar systems, maritime sensors, and a network of underground sensors. The Hamas attack showed that all this can be neutralised and the massive intelligence failure spoke poorly of Israel’s spyware. But Israel’s response has taken the attention away from these failures and rebuilt the reputation of its military and intelligence ware in the market. The recent pager blasts that are widely perceived to be the handiwork of Israel — although the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, has denied any involvement — is another show-stopper.

The book also dwells on the “inherent bias of Silicon Valley firms” extending beyond social media to mapping apps; Loewenstein points out that they “contain a minimal amount of data about the Palestinian landscape”. Loewenstein maps the selectivity of social media sites in moderating content to the disadvantage of the Palestinians, drawing attention, once again, to how a different standard was employed when Russia attacked Ukraine. “Many other repressive regimes favoured by the US have not been censored in the same circumstances.’’

By the time the book arrived in India, it warranted a preface to factor in the October 7 attacks. Titled “The Gaza Laboratory”, Loewenstein throws light on the chinks in Israel’s high-tech armour. He analyses the October 7 attack thus: “What went so wrong on October 7 for Israel was a combination of hi-tech arrogance, a belief that Israel’s surveillance apparatus was impenetrable, and the intelligence agencies’ fatal blindness to clear signs that Hamas was preparing a major attack. Israel’s encircling of Gaza with a suite of fences, drones and listening devices was always predicated on the deluded belief that Palestinians would acquiesce to their imprisonment.’’

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Just how close are Brazil and Israel?

My book, The Palestine Laboratory, was recently released in a Brazilian translated edition.

Here’s my interview with the popular Brazilian outlet, Opera Mundi, on my book and Brazil’s long-term relationship with the Israeli state.

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TRT World interview on ICC earthquake against Israel

My latest interview with global broadcaster TRT World on the ICC arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant.

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Growing military and AI ties between Israel and India

Israel’s increasing use of AI in Gaza and beyond should concern us all.

I’m quoted in an important new story by Azad Essa in Middle East Eye:

Israeli forces are using an AI weapons system in Gaza co-produced by an Indian defence company that turns machine guns and assault rifles into computerised killing machines, Middle East Eye can reveal.

According to documents and news reports seen by MEE, Israeli forces have been using the Arbel weapons system in Gaza following their devastating invasion of the enclave after the 7 October attacks on southern Israel.

Touted as a “revolutionary game changer that improves operator lethality and survivability,” the Arbel system enhances machine guns and assault weapons – such as the Israeli-produced Tavor, Carmel and Negev – into a weapon that uses algorithms to boost soldiers chances of hitting targets more accurately and efficiently.

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“One of the most revealing aspects of Israel’s mass slaughter in Gaza is that targeting civilians was the point. It was never about just going after Hamas,” Antony Loewenstein, an independent journalist who has been tracking new technologies being used in Gaza and occupied West Bank for years, told MEE.

“I have spoken to people in Gaza, I have seen the direct human impact of this kind of killing. It is horrific,” Loewenstein, the author of The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports The Technology of Occupation Around The World, added.

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Loewenstein says that until there are legal ramifications for the killing of mass killings of civilians, these so-called AI tools are only going to proliferate.

“Given that India is already Israel’s biggest buyer of weapons – the official stats suggest 40 percent to 45 percent though my guess is that the real number is higher – I am worried that this tool will be used by Indian soldiers within its own borders or for that matter exported globally,” Loewenstein said.

“I’d be worried that this kind of tool would be exported to other regimes and governments – democratic or despotic – who will use it for their own nefarious ends,” Loewenstein added.

Read the whole story.

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Austrian public radio on The Palestine Laboratory

Since my book, The Palestine Laboratory, was released last year I’ve rarely been interviewed by journalists from Germany and Austria due to those country’s absurdly narrow understanding of Israel/Palestine.

It was therefore pleasing to be interviewed by the leading Austrian public radio station, ORF, about my book and Israel’s deadly use of quadcopters in Gaza.

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Honestly cover Palestine in Italy and face serious threats

Italy’s leading investigative TV program recently featured a long report on Gaza and interviewed me about my book, The Palestine Laboratory.

As a result of this program, the program and host are being threatened in very direct and worrying ways:

“You should be ashamed of last week’s ignoble anti-Israel service. Ethnic cleansing by the Israeli army in Gaza!? You deserve it, Charlie Hebdo’s editorial room style”. The message of threats was delivered to the editorial staff of the investigation program Report by Rai3, the host Sigfrido Ranucci denounced on Tuesday, in a post on Facebook.

The message alludes to Giorgio Mottola’s service on the situation of the war in Gaza and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Scary” intimidation, writes Ranucci, who explains that the text “evokes the attack of January 7, 2015, when a commando of two men armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles broke into the premises of the newspaper’s headquarters during the weekly editorial meeting, shooting at those present. Twelve people were killed, including the director Stéphane Charbonnier called Charb, several historical collaborators of the periodical (Cabu, Tignous, Georges Wolinski, Honoré) and two policemen”, adding that the episode was reported to the policemen of his escort.

The broadcast and the host were the solidarity of the president of the Rai supervisory committee Barbara Floridia: “I express full and total solidarity and personal closeness towards Sigfrido Ranucci and the entire editorial staff of Report for the unacceptable and shameful threats suffered following the broadcast of a report on Israel. I hope that the competent authorities will be able to identify as soon as possible the person responsible for this act that marks yet another unworthy attack on freedom of information in our country,” wrote the policy of the 5 Star Movement.

The same Movement published a note in support of Report: “The threats suffered by the editorial staff of Report related to the service on the situation in Israel and Palestine are very serious and deserve the utmost attention. Sigfrido Ranucci is already forced to live under escort and receiving similar threats represents yet another vile attack on the independent press in our country. We are sure that all the political forces share our indignation and will be able to express closeness to you and your editorial staff,” write the 5S exponents in the Rai supervisory committee Dario Carotenuto, Dolores Bevilacqua and Anna Laura Orrico.

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CNN interview on Trump’s desire to destroy Palestine

My interview on CNN about Trump’s dangerous embrace of Christian nationalism.

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Italy’s complicity in the destruction of Palestine

My book, The Palestine Laboratory, was recently released in Italy.

Here’s my interview with the popular Italian Youtuber Paola Ceccantoni talking about the struggles in Palestine and Italy’s complicity.

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