Just after 9/11, Benjamin Netanyahu warned American audiences on CNBC that, unless the United States and the West cracked down on terrorists, they would “destroy our civilization, our freedoms, our democracy that they hate so much.” Such grandiose justifications for the War on Terror are perhaps cliche by now, and any mention of “democracy” from Netanyahu appears just as dated. Here is a man who has occupied the office of Israeli Prime Minister three times, limited the judiciary’s powers, and expanded (internationally) illegal settlements in the West Bank. There is nothing democratic about Netanyahu, yet the United States goes to great lengths to say precisely the opposite. The truth of the matter is seldom addressed in our politics.
Upon reading The Palestine Laboratory, Netanyahu doesn’t appear any different from his country—even though American commentators swear to the contrary. Antony Loewenstein argues that Israel is an authoritarian state first, and an enabler second: Israel contributes to democratic backsliding and conflicts worldwide by selling military and surveillance technology to regimes who seek to control or kill populations more effectively. Israel is notably adept at developing these technologies because it cannot exist without ethnically cleansing Palestinian Arabs, and it is willing to sell these because it cannot exist without the collaboration (and even patronage) of other countries. Israel has thus thrived on authoritarian regimes since its inception, since it can satisfy their security demands at any given time.
The Palestine Laboratory is primarily a journalistic work, but Loewenstein makes sure to contextualize his reporting. Zionist militias had ample experience driving Palestinians out of their villages by the time of the Nakba (1948), after which the young Israel immediately began arming other genocidal and settler-colonial regimes like Sri Lanka and Rhodesia. But it might surprise the modern observer to learn that “Israel bonded with newly independent African states” in the 60s, that Israel did not unabashedly align itself with U.S. foreign policy until the Six-Day War. After 1967, decolonized states expectedly had little interest in warming relations with a country which occupied a third of Egypt and Jordan respectively, and Israel acquired a “hard-nosed realpolitik” to make up for this dearth of allies. The market for tanks and missiles was much larger than that of, say, oranges and dates in the midst of the cold war.
Israel’s list of recipient states for military tech during the Cold War is exhausting in number and horror, but well-documented: Suharto’s Indonesia and Somoza’s Nicaragua feature in this book and many others. Granted, certain parts of the first chapter are still intriguing. First is Israel’s shift away from holding former Nazis accountable, as proven by the state’s support of Pinochet’s Chile and Stroessner’s Paraguay.[1] Second is Israel’s incongruence with U.S. interests, as proven by its collaboration with Ceausescu’s Romania. What makes these facts so interesting in Loewenstein’s book is that they do not merely prove Israel’s hypocrisy as a Jewish state or U.S. ally. To Loewenstein, Israel was a forerunner to, and is a collaborator with, states that cynically pursue their own national interests at the expense of liberal democracy.
Such countries are kindred spirits with Israel. Israel gladly offers military training and Heron drones to an India annexing Kashmir and oppressing Indian muslims, an Azerbaijan driving out Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, and a Greece detaining African immigrants in the Mediterranean. These and many other applications for Israeli technology naturally mount up innumerable human rights violations, and the journalists and lawyers who care about this are silenced with Israeli spyware. Loewenstein takes care to point out, however, that the populaces of these nations do support the uses of Israeli technology. As Italy, Greece, and now the United States come under democratically elected ethnonationalist regimes, their demand for Israeli technology increases in order to oppress immigrants and silence dissenters. Israel is not alone in its “extreme form of nationalism that’s been commercialized for more than fifty years.”
Loewenstein is thus at his best when he reveals the moral bankruptcy of the world at large, contextualizing Israel’s crimes. Israel itself is irredeemable in that its civilian government, military, and private tech companies operate together to commit atrocities in Palestine and beyond: personnel in the IDF’s unit 8200 (the equivalent of the NSA here in the States) move to start-ups such as Mer Security, which help the police monitor Palestinians in Jerusalem, or the NSO Group, which help Israel’s allies monitor and quash dissent. There is thus no “good Israel” interested in holding “bad Israel” accountable, and there isn’t a “good United States” or “good Russia” interested in doing it either.
Loewenstein did not address the Gaza genocide, as The Palestine Laboratory was written before October 7, 2023, but it is safe to say that the event did not change the partnerships mentioned in the book. Turkey, an oft-mentioned collaborator, announced it would sever all economic ties with Israel in 2025, but the Palestinian Youth Movement (among other organizations) recently discovered last month that “at least 57 shipments of crude oil—totaling nearly 47 million barrels of oil—have been delivered from Ceyhan to Israel after Türkiye’s alleged trade embargo was established.” Similar contradictions between talk and action appear in Ireland and Canada. Certainly, Israel’s economy has taken a toll from plummeting tourism and investor confidence, but its capacity (or at least will) to wage war has not, as we have recently seen in Lebanon and Iran. In this regard, The Palestine Laboratory holds true.
In sum, Loewenstein’s investigation is a worthy read for anyone interested in learning about the sheer breadth of Israeli collaboration. The Palestine Laboratory is not a theoretical work, but it is a testament to the quality of the journalism that current paths of resistance in the West seem misguided. No round of protests or “anti-imperialist” state of the decade has ousted the occupation since 1948; Israel has only become more powerful. Our cries will fall on deaf ears as long as the bodies stand.
[1]Former Nazis did not merely take refuge in South American dictatorships, but they also collaborated with or served in government. Collaboration with these dictatorships was thus a switch on Israel’s part, since the state would hunt down and execute Nazi war criminals in its infancy.
Written by Leo, a Spring 2026 Intern
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Jerusalem Fund.
