Antony Loewenstein is a multi-award winning author, filmmaker, and investigative journalist, with hands in an array of resources covering the Israeli occupation of Palestine. His recent book, ‘The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World’, is a global bestseller, and winner of the 2023 Walkley Book Award, among other accolades. Loewenstein, through intensive inquisition, angles at the Israeli military industrial complex, and the sustenance it siphons from Palestinian blood; its arms dealing itself an ironclad armour against international exposition. The book is a clarion voice amidst the clangour of gunmetal.
Following his appearance on the Sydney Writers’ Festival panel “Dark Technologies”, I sat down with Loewenstein for a parsing of his work, re-entrenched in the grave developments to the ongoing occupation following The Palestine Laboratory’s publication in 2023.
Date: Sunday, May 26, 2024
Location- Carriageworks Media Room
Firstly, I just wanted to commend you on writing this book. I can’t imagine it was an easy undertaking. I understand the development of your perspective on Israel and Palestine has been a journey with many turning points. Was there a particular moment or instance that galvanised you to write this book in particular?
I was living in East Jerusalem in Palestine between 2016 and 2020 when the genesis for this book started. Essentially, I was often frustrated with what I saw in so much of the media coverage globally. It was very much just about what happened today or yesterday. Obviously, it is important to know that, but there was a bigger story that I thought wasn’t being told, which was that what Israel is doing in Palestine, Gaza, the West Bank, is far worse than just mistreating and occupying Palestinians. What they’re doing is trying to extract economic benefit and political benefit. They do this, among other ways, by testing surveillance, weapons, and various other tools of oppression in Palestine for a global market. And that’s, in some ways, how Israel has bought global influence, by selling weapons to so many people for so long, as I talk about in the book. So that was the genesis - that I was often angry with how little the media covered that perspective. I saw a kind of gap in that journalism, and it took years to try to fill that gap by doing the book.
You often stress the threat of ethnonationalism as a primary concern for the ages. Notably, at the book’s closure, you write that damage to Israel’s reputation is unlikely without a “radical change in its behaviour and defense policies”. Can you speak to the relationship between capitalism and ethnonationalism in sustaining Israel’s violent hierarchy?
Israel’s occupation is not just driven by profit. Israel is not doing these horrible things to Palestinians solely to make money. It’s for ideological reasons, and political reasons. But, the capitalist element is important. As you may know, I did a book and a film a number of years ago called “Disaster Capitalism”. Israel’s occupation industries have become, over the last decade, a huge part of their economy. It’s arguable that if that suddenly stopped tomorrow, the economy would survive. They might find something else to do. But the surveillance technology, the spyware, the weapons, all these things that Israel has become experts at, is a key thing that Israel promotes globally. Without that side of the economy, I think that they would not be an economic power anymore. And it’s a way to buy friends. You are, as a state selling this oppressive tech to so many countries, trying to secure an insurance policy on criticism of your policies becoming far worse.
Since October 7 and what’s been happening in Gaza in the last 7 to 8 months, I think Israel for the first time really ever is facing the possibility of potential sanctions by other states. We saw just recently the International Criminal Court looking to prosecute and arrest Netanyahu and his defense minister, along with Hamas leaders. This is unheard of. This has never happened before. Now, they haven’t been arrested, and there’s been no trial. It may never happen. No one knows. But, I would say, because of the ongoing war and Israel’s economy taking a hit, they will be looking to increase their arms and surveillance industry, and part of that has been testing and trialling new weapons in Gaza. Again, they’re not in Gaza just to make money. That’s not the main reason they’re there. They’re there for revenge. For ideological reasons. But it’s pretty good from Israel’s perspective that they’re also making a shitload of money from that, and they’re going to be hoping to do that in the coming years.
Social media as a “warzone” for Israeli propaganda is one of many technological tactics addressed in your book. Since the book’s release, there has been a significant uptick in support for a “Free Palestine” across social media platforms. What are your thoughts on this ongoing virtual turf war as far as challenging a Zionist hegemony?
I think Israel is petrified. Some of the American politicians have been honest enough to admit that their reason for wanting to ban TikTok, which I’m no great defender or supporter of, is because too many young Americans support Palestine. That’s an insane thought. That seems crazy to me. There’s been a massive explosion of trying to censor, ban, shadowban, huge amounts of social media accounts that are supportive of Palestine since October 7. I say this in the book, and my view hasn’t changed - I don’t think it works. Yes, people’s accounts can be banned, that “works”. But, public opinion in many countries, particularly with young 18-30 year olds is, in fact, going in the opposite direction to what they want. They’re much more supportive of Palestine. All the student encampments here, in the US, and elsewhere, are obviously mostly young students in their 20s and late teens. And it’s pretty hard if you’re a person seeing, as we all do, these insane, daily, brutal pictures or videos online about what’s happening in Gaza. How can that not be radicalising? How can you not be enraged that this is happening, often if you are a westerner, backed by our own governments?
So, I think there will be an attempt by Israel and its supporters to increase censorship in the coming years. What it really shows, also, is that there needs to be much more viable alternatives to the major social media platforms. We all rely on those big players - Tiktok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter - If suddenly, we had no access to them tomorrow, how do we get our message out? There’s email and there’s websites, sure, but there needs to be alternative infrastructures, not owned or backed by big tech.
And, of course, social media is only scratching the surface of Israel’s war technology. Israel is a premier arms dealer to so many global powers, and the way that these technologies are marketed and tested through that “Palestine Laboratory” is singular in audacity. Do you have further comment on Israel’s perversion toward pain inflicted on the Palestinian people?
I need to be a therapist to really explain that, don’t I? The dislike, contempt, hatred for Palestinians for many Israelis starts at a very young age. I’m not Israeli. I’ve lived in Palestine, but I’m not a citizen. But I see this both in Israel itself, and also much of the global Jewish diaspora. There is a shift, there’s more and more young Jews speaking out, but this contempt, this hatred, of Palestinians still runs so deep. I’m Jewish, and the book opens with me talking about myself, but the book is not mostly about me. I think it’s imperative that more and more Jewish people speak out on this question, and the reality that since October 7, there have been around 40 000 Palestinians killed. It is not a Jewish value to mass kill Palestinians. There are still too many Jewish people who either stay silent, are complicit, or support what’s going on, in the deluded belief that’ll bring Jews or Israel safety. The opposite is happening. It’s actually worsening antisemitism, making Jews much more unsafe, both in Israel and globally. There is, in some ways, a real fight in the Jewish community over these issues. That was existing long before October 7, but it’s exploded. Particularly in the US, but elsewhere, in the last 7 months.
Responsible journalistic representation on Palestine still kind of remains fairly sparse. What is your evaluation of the role of journalism and reporting during grave times such as these?
I think the role of good journalism is not this false concept of balance - “he said, she said” - but fairness. In Gaza, there are no international journalists. There are some amazing Palestinian journalists, many of whom - over 100 - have been killed. Although, in the west, there has been support for some of those journalists, there has been far too little of that. They’re our ears and eyes. Without those people, we don’t know what’s going on. Too many journalists won’t admit this if you ask them, but they want access. They want to be close to power. If you ask them, they say “no, no, our job is to be critical of power”. It’s bullshit, that’s not what they’re doing. Whether it’s Israel, or AUKUS, or whatever it may be, our role as journalists should be sceptical of all power, doesn’t matter who it is. Yes, we all have to cultivate sources. I’ve spoken to and had professional relationships with sources, or people I’ve gotten to know. But I see a good journalist’s role to be a bomb thrower. Not literal, just to be clear. Not a literal bomb thrower. A grenade thrower, but not a literal grenade. To cause trouble, challenge power, whatever it may be. And I think too many journalists think they’re doing that, but the results are not that, because we can see what they publish. Good investigative journalism, or any journalism that is serious, in my view, should challenge all power. Whether it’s the US, Australia, Israel, Hamas, whoever it may be - challenge power. Because power doesn’t like being challenged.
Amidst an occupation that relies so heavily on the haze of mystification, the sharing of knowledge is a restorative practice. It’s an engagement made even more potent in its manufactured scarcity, as the Israeli state continues to redact paper trails of a violent history in an opaque vapour of blood.
The Palestine Laboratory is the praxis of knowledge as restoration. Loewenstein helps oxygenate the fog of war, as his book casts clarity upon the gory innards of the Israeli ethnostate. In reading this book, and continuing to engage in dialogues like these, we can start to properly equip ourselves, and de-equip the Zionist regime.
You can find The Palestine Laboratory online and at participating retailers. Engage further with Antony Loewenstein’s work at antonyloewenstein.com.
