The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation around the World, by Antony Loewenstein

“Loewenstein writes a fascinating book, documented and evidence-based, on the lesser-known side of the occupation, one of the few in history where the occupier only benefits and does not pay anything for it. This is a book that paints a portrait of Israel, one of the ten largest arms exporters in the world, which trades in death and suffering and sells them to anyone who wants to buy.”

—Gideon Levy, Haaretz

“This is a must read on a hidden and shocking aspect of the Israeli colonization of the Palestinians. We have waited long for such a book that exposes the way Israel uses its oppression of 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…”

—Ilan Pappe, author of Ten Myths About Israel

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.

Bestselling journalist Antony Loewenstein, author of Disaster Capitalism, uncovers this largely hidden world in an extraordinary global investigation. The book shows, in-depth and for the first time, how Palestine has become the perfect laboratory for the Israeli military-techno complex. From constant surveillance, home demolitions and indefinite incarceration, to the hi-tech devices that drive the “Start-up Nation”, Israel has become a global leader in spying technology and defence hardware: the occupation is the ideal marketing tool, and Palestine the proving ground.

Antony Loewenstein is an independent journalist, bestselling author, filmmaker and co-founder of Declassified Australia. He has written for the Guardian, the New York Times, the New York Review of Books and many others. His books include Pills, Powder and Smoke, Disaster Capitalism and My Israel Question. His documentary films include Disaster Capitalism and the Al Jazeera English films West Africa’s Opioid Crisis and Under the Cover of Covid. He was based in East Jerusalem 2016–2020. The Palestine Laboratory is the winner of the 2023 Walkley Book Award, Australia’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize.