Livestream: The Palestine Laboratory

A conversation with Antony Loewenstein

Transcript

The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Uses Genocide to Test and Sell Weapons

International Union of Scientists Discussion Transcript

Watch the video above, on Youtube, or on Rumble.
Speakers:

• Manabendra Nath Bera - Coordinating Committee Member, International Union of Scientists (Moderator)
• Antony Loewenstein - Author and Journalist
• Michael Gasser - Coordinating Committee Member, International Union of Scientists (Facilitator)
• Assaf Kfoury - International Organizing Committee Member, International Union of Scientists

Opening Remarks

Manabendra Nath Bera: Hello everyone. I'm Manabendra Nath Bera from India, a member of the coordinating committee of the International Union of Scientists. On behalf of our international union, I warmly welcome you to today's online discussion on The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Uses Genocide to Test and Sell Weapons.

Before we begin, I would like to share a few words about our International Union of Scientists. The International Union of Scientists is composed of scientists, engineers, and physicians. Our mission has always been to advance science and technology for the benefit of humanity. Yet over the past several decades, we have observed with concern how our research and innovation are increasingly exploited for destructive purposes—whether in wars that claim innocent lives or in actions that destroy climate, ecology, and environment.

Unfortunately, for the most part, we have remained passive observers, with only a few exceptions. The genocide in Gaza carried out by the state of Israel shattered this silence. Thousands of scientists, engineers, and medical doctors felt compelled to speak out, to amplify and coordinate our collective voice. We organized the International Convention Against Israeli Apartheid and Genocide in Gaza on December 9th, 2023.

During the convention, we resolved to establish a platform for scientists, engineers, and medical doctors called the International Union of Scientists Against Militarism and the Destructive Use of Science and Technology with the following objectives:

1. Oppose militarization of science
2. Promote the solidarity of scientists with those in conflict zones and under authoritarian regimes
3. Advocate for equitable access to scientific knowledge
4. Combat all forms of discrimination, whether based on race, gender, religion, caste, or nationality, and stand united against fascism and authoritarianism in any form
5. Take action to prevent climate change and environmental degradation

Today's online discussion is part of a series exploring the theme of militarism and technology. Our goal is to foster meaningful dialogue and drive action while enhancing our awareness of the ethical responsibilities scientists bear in today's world.

Joining us today for the discussion is best-selling author and journalist Antony Loewenstein on his book The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World, which won the 2023 Walkley Book Award and has been translated into nine languages. This session specifically examines how Israel's military-industrial complex, with the support of other imperialist nations, exploits the occupied Palestinian territories as a testing ground for advanced weaponry and surveillance technology. These tools are subsequently exported worldwide, reaching both authoritarian regimes and so-called democratic governments.

We sincerely thank Loewenstein for accepting our invitation and joining us for the discussion today. To facilitate the conversation with Antony Loewenstein, we are also joined by another coordinating committee member of the International Union of Scientists, Michael Gasser.

For the audience, the event is being livestreamed on our YouTube channel, X page, and Rumble. You can submit your questions about today's discussion in the chat boxes of YouTube, X page, and Rumble. We will forward your questions to the speaker to address during the session.

Now I invite Antony and Michael to start the discussion on The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Uses Genocide to Test and Sell Weapons. Over to you, Antony and Michael.

Main Discussion

Michael Gasser: Good evening, Antony. Thanks for joining us.

Antony Loewenstein: Thank you so much for having me.

Michael Gasser: Your book describes a "weapons laboratory" model wherein Israel uses Palestine as an experimental environment for surveillance and weapons technologies, then sells these "battle-tested" products to over 100 states worldwide. Could you describe some of the most striking cases of this field-tested export model and show how Israeli universities, research labs, and startups are integrated into the country's military-industrial system?

Antony Loewenstein: It's worth saying that this is an issue which has been going on for a long time. I think there is a perception in some circles—maybe not in this event now—that the laboratory has been a relatively new phenomenon that particularly came after October 7th. It certainly accelerated, which I'll get to in a minute. But one of the things I look at in my book, and I've also done a film version of The Palestine Laboratory, which people can find on YouTube—it was done for Al Jazeera earlier this year, a two-part series—was that pretty much since the state's beginning in 1948, there was already a belief that Israel needed to develop a so-called domestic arms industry using Palestinians as a testing ground. And obviously the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza only began in 1967.

Since then—more than 50 years—Israel has done everything from, in the modern era, drones, biometric data gathering, a range of other tools such as AI warfare. One of the really disturbing developments that's occurred in Gaza, and some people on this event will be aware of this, is the use of AI. Israel was using AI before October 7th in the previous Gaza war in 2021, but it hugely accelerated in the recent war. What I mean by AI warfare was that AI machines were spitting out targets—essentially people in Gaza. After October 7th and Israel's decision to go into Gaza—and I would argue commit genocide from the beginning, that the intent was there in my view from the beginning—there was a desire from the Israeli side for targets. What are we going to hit? Who are we going to kill? Where are we going to go? And the choice of targets were being spat out by AI based on huge amounts of data points.

Israel made the decision, in my view, profoundly morally and illegally, to kill massive amounts of civilians under the guise of killing terrorists and terrorists such as Hamas. And I just want to say one thing on this point, which I know we'll get to a bit later, but none of this would have been possible without the deep assistance of Silicon Valley companies. We're talking about Oracle, Palantir, Microsoft, Google, Amazon—the list goes on—who provided either massive cloud space for Israel, some of which existed before October 7th but has massively expanded since, or indeed there's evidence to suggest that I've heard from various sources that some of those companies were involved actually in targeting.

So the idea that this was just a decision made by Israel or the Israeli military would be false. There is deep complicity in many, many Western Silicon Valley companies, and I think in time there is a decent chance that some of those companies will be held to account legally.

Michael Gasser: In continuation to this answer, if you could also tell us a bit about, let's say, how the Israeli universities are actually involved in this?

Antony Loewenstein: Yes. So one of the key aspects of the Israeli system—for those who don't know, Israel is a small country, it's about 10 million people—the university system there pretty much from the beginning, the beginning being 1948, has been tied to the army. The IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces, is central to the Israeli mindset—a belief that we need to protect ourselves against our enemies, so the thinking goes—and the university sector has provided key personnel and thinking and research and development in that area.

A lot of the tools—there's a unit in the Israeli military called Unit 8200. That's essentially like America's NSA intelligence. And what it's been doing and what it continues to do, principally since 1967, is monitor Palestinians day in, day out. And a lot of the people in that unit leave the unit at some point and then form private companies. A lot of the development is done through Israeli universities. So we're talking about the development of new surveillance tech, spyware on phones, mobile phones, cell phones, killer drones. And there's lots of evidence from Hebrew University to Technion and others of a lot of these companies actually using personnel from these universities or, for that matter, there are now, as some people on this call will be aware, actual universities based in the occupied West Bank in Ariel, which is an illegal settlement in the West Bank. There's a university there.

What all these universities are wanting in the West is legitimacy, is credibility, is this idea somehow that we're just a normal university doing research and development. "How dare you challenge our morality. You should partner with us." And one thing that's become very clear—and this was already beginning before October 7th, but it's certainly increased in the last year, and I say this based on sources I have within Israel, but also stories that are appearing in the Israeli press—there is a growing isolation of many in the Israeli academy. What I mean by that is often not being invited to events in England, America, on a range of issues. In other words, one of the key aspects of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement, BDS, which has been around since 2005 for those who don't know, which was started by Palestinians modeled to an extent on the campaign against apartheid South Africa back in the day to end apartheid in 1994, was to isolate academia—essentially to say that, not to say every single Israeli academic is evil, that's not what it says, but it says that there is a great deal of complicity with the Israeli military surveillance tech, and often there's a pipeline from the private sector to academia and vice versa.

Therefore, there's a legitimate call to boycott those institutions, to not partner with them, to not invest there. And that, in fact, has been growing massively in the last 6 to 12 months. And my sense is it'll continue to grow.

Michael Gasser: Thank you, Antony. Maybe I'll go for the next question. So my next question is again about your book, which is obviously very important because there, in addition to wars and weapons, it also covers security and policing resources that are often internal to a state. This obviously affects us all in our ordinary lives. You document the link between the training of police in USA of the knee-on-neck technique, which the police used to murder George Floyd. We know many of these systems also use nowadays AI-driven data analytics and biometric surveillance. We also hosted a previous webinar on this with Jen Deiuliis and Matt Mahmoudi who addressed some of these issues. However, one issue that warrants further discussion is the increasing use of private security forces, including mercenaries and even criminal syndicates. Can you tell us a bit on this or discuss this?

Antony Loewenstein: One thing it's worth saying in relation to this, and I say this in my book, is the American police don't need Israel to be racist. Now, I'm not suggesting that every American officer is racist. That of course would not be true. But American police have a long history of profound discrimination and racism and violence against particularly minorities, African Americans, and others. However, what has particularly happened since 9/11—and very soon after 9/11 in fact—there began to be a program initially begun by the Anti-Defamation League, the ADL, under the guise of telling American police forces you could learn a lot from how to fight a war on terror from Israel. "They've been fighting the war on terror forever. They've been fighting Islamic terrorism," so the argument goes, "and you should go to Israel to see how they do it, essentially."

And I document in the book and I do in the film as well how there's been thousands and thousands of American police officers at various levels, from very much the top to the low-level ranks, who have gone to Israel to monitor, observe, and learn from Israeli techniques—and vice versa, I might add. So Israeli police have a long history of profound racism against mostly Palestinians, and American police, of course, have a history of racism against African Americans especially. And they're learning from each other, and they don't even hide that. I mean, it's actually quite open. They talk about it. I mean, often the collaboration is not done publicly, but afterwards they talk about it—how much we learned from going to Israel, how much we learned from going to the US—to the point where, for example, the US-Mexico border is obviously a highly politicized space, long before Trump came into office, of course. And as I document in the film and the book, there is a massive Israeli presence of surveillance tech there.

A lot of the surveillance towers that the US has installed in Arizona are Israeli-made by Elbit. And I've been there. I've been literally right up to them. I was there last September. They are massive surveillance towers which on the US-Mexico border are aiming to monitor not just migrants coming into America but also Native Americans who are from that area. And you have Israeli officials who have come there to witness that, to see that. And the only reason, of course, that the US ended up buying that equipment is because it had been battle-tested in Palestine first. I mean, that's the selling point, right? The only reason a country like the US or India or many others are coming to Israel for help and buying their equipment is because they've seen it in action, whether it's against African Americans, migrants, Native Americans, whoever it may be.

And you're right, one of the things that Israel has increasingly exported is this kind of concept. The Israeli arms industry—just to give people a bit of a sense of what we're talking about here—the Israeli arms industry is the eighth biggest in the world. America, of course, is number one by far, and Israel is never going to beat that. But for a country of 10 million people to have an arms industry of such size is pretty remarkable really. And they have sold—as was said at the beginning by Michael—we don't even know the exact number of people or countries that have bought this equipment. I estimate around 130 to 140. This is over decades, not just in the last months. And pretty much virtually any country you can think of, from big to small, democratic to autocracy, has bought some form of this—spyware, drones, training from Israeli military officials.

And the impact of that, particularly in the last 10 or 15 years, the issue that's got a lot of attention, which he didn't mention exactly, but it's worth mentioning, of course, is spyware. That's been ubiquitous. So Pegasus and others—essentially tools, spies that are installed on your phone, Android or iPhone, without your knowledge. You have no way really of finding out unless the phone is tested. And as I document in the book and in the film, this has impacted huge numbers of people from India. I was in India last year looking into this. India has been a massive user of Israeli spyware. Mexico, which for a range of reasons is the world's most obsessive and biggest user of Israeli spyware, which is a crazy story on its own, and a huge number of other nations.

And what Israel has been doing, particularly with Netanyahu, who's been prime minister with a few exceptions pretty much for the last 15 years, if not more actually, is he uses those kinds of tools as a diplomatic carrot. What I mean by that is he goes to a country—Rwanda, India, and others—and says, "I'm sure you would love to get a piece of this equipment. You could spy on..." I mean, the equipment is sold as going after criminals and terrorists, but in fact, in reality, it may do that as well, but actually it's also about going after dissidents and critics and journalists, etc.

So what Israel will do is they'll go to these countries, as I said, the ones I mentioned and others, and say, "We'll sell you this equipment for $40, $50 million," which is not very much in the scheme of things, "and in return we would like you, for example, to change your vote at the UN." Now it doesn't always work as neatly as this, but you can see—and I document this in the book—country after country after country was buying this spyware, Pegasus and others, and their votes at the UN started to change. This is how so-called spyware diplomacy works.

And one of the things that's so disturbing is the countries that have bought this equipment, these buying tools—it seems pretty clear to me based on my sources that both the Israeli company itself and probably the Israeli government is actually having access to that information. So what does that say to you about the leverage that Israel now has over, say, India, Modi, Orbán in Hungary? The list goes on and on and on.

And although Pegasus is not as much used as it once was, although it is still used, there are many other tools that do exactly the same thing and they're just not as known. And so what I worry about in this issue is spyware is an unregulated space. There's no regulation anywhere. The EU talked about it. They flirted with regulation, never went anywhere. And the impact of that is that spyware probably is one of the greatest tools of breaching privacy that exists today because you don't know it's happening. You have no idea. The average person—and by the way, for those who think, "Oh, I have encrypted apps. I use WhatsApp or Signal"—if your phone is compromised, those apps are useless. They can still be read. They can still be accessed by a third party, a government, an intelligence service, a police force, etc.

And so I guess what I'd say to people is—I mean, some people sort of say, "Well, how do you avoid this?" I mean, the only way to avoid it is not to use a cell phone at all, which is almost impossible in the modern era. You know, use pen and paper again, which is quaint but not very useful. But it's to be aware. It's to be aware that these tools are being used to abuse, and to have your phone checked, which you can do if you think you're vulnerable.

Michael Gasser: Thank you. So yeah, I kind of see two aspects to the answer you have given. One is obviously that this kind of leverage Israel essentially uses because of their so-called collaboration in terms of exchange of technology and the weapons. But at the same time, training the police forces is actually beyond that. It's more like kind of copying the authoritarian concept that Israel essentially applies on their own people, or also the Palestinian people. This concept is also somehow being exported, and that's how possibly there is also an additional thrust of the collaboration. This is first.

Second, just for our audience, just to get them some idea about the extent of the spyware and in particularly AI-driven technologies, can you also tell us a bit about Blue Wolf and Red Wolf, the kind of spyware or the AI-driven technology the Israeli forces use in order to really control the Palestinian people, and obviously later on they export them to other countries?

Antony Loewenstein: Okay, let me answer the first part first. One of the things I talk about a lot in the book is Israel is not just selling weapons or surveillance. They're obviously selling that as well to countless countries, and some countries only want to buy Pegasus or a drone or a missile defense shield. Okay. But Israel is actually selling much more than that, and this is where it comes into the broader picture of how Israel has become for many in the world on the right and the far right a model—an ethno-nationalist model.

Israel, and I say this as someone who's Jewish myself, although I'm not religious at all, I'm atheist, but I am Jewish—Israel is a Jewish supremacist state. I mean, it proudly discriminates against anyone who is not Jewish. And for many on the right and the far right globally, from Sweden to France to the US to Germany, they admire that. They don't want to create a Jewish state in Sweden. They want to create a Christian ethno-nationalist state. And there's a reason—if you go to many of these far-right rallies, which I've been to for work purposes, of course, not because I support them, you often find the Israeli flag. I mean, the idea that far-right rallies, who traditionally are made up of, if not anti-Semites, often neo-Nazis and others, who support Israel, and Israel is welcoming that support hugely. They're not saying, "We don't want any of that kind of thing. Don't give it to us." They're saying the opposite. They're actually saying, "We embrace that."

This is how—this is, I would argue, Israel's future. As the right and the far right surges globally from Trump to elsewhere, they see an alliance based on not just convenience but values—anti-Islam, anti-multiculturalism, anti-diversity, anti-gay. The list goes on.

And the appeal or the allure of Israel—let me give you one short example. India—you know, Prime Minister Modi in India is conducting his own policies for his own reasons. He's not doing it because of Israel, of course not. He's a Hindu nationalist, Hindu fundamentalist in my view, and he's trying to create a Hindu fundamentalist state while discriminating against 200 million Muslims in India. And he's doing that for his own reasons, of course.

However, there's a reason why India and Israel are so close. Yes, it's a defense relationship and they're selling weapons and surveillance tech, to be sure, but they admire each other. I mean, Modi and Netanyahu have often talked about this. They admire each other's racism, which is what I call it. Israel's racism against Arabs and India's racism against Muslims. And that kind of ideological alignment I think is something that should deeply worry us because—I mean, I don't need to tell people on this call—but India is a massively powerful and growing nation, and that kind of alliance is worrying because the vision of people like Netanyahu and Modi are remarkably similar.

The second part of your question about Blue Wolf and Red Wolf—for those, let me briefly explain what that is. In the West Bank, not Gaza, in the West Bank for a number of years now, a lot of Israeli soldiers have an app on their phone essentially. And what they do is day in, day out, they are going around Palestinian villages and towns from Hebron and others and trying to gather key information about every single Palestinian—biometric data, personal information, etc.—and putting it into a massive database. Of course, there's no access to that database. I can't see it. Palestinians can't see it. But the aim is to build a huge, massive profile of every single Palestinian, which of course gives you unbelievably incredible power over that person. It gives you the power to decide whether they can go from here to there. Israel has that power.

A Palestinian might apply to leave to go to university in London, New York, who knows where. Israel will give some reason why they can't get out because of security reasons, whatever it may be. So the whole concept of mass surveillance done by this unit I mentioned before, 8200, along with Israeli soldiers day in, day out, I think shows not dissimilarly to what the Chinese are doing to the Uyghurs in their country—documenting their every move, restricting their access to go from point A to point B, etc.—is not that dissimilar to what Israel is doing to Palestinians in the West Bank.

And since October 7th and Israel's genocide in Gaza, Israel has been using similar tools, massive amounts of biometric gathering instruments. I've seen photos of this. I've spoken to people who have documented this. Of course, it's very hard to get all the accurate information because it's been a war zone. There's been no international journalists allowed in, which remains to this day. I mean, the incredible courage of Palestinian journalists who have been killed in unprecedented numbers needs to be mentioned here. I mean, for those who aren't aware, no international journalists have gone into Gaza since October 7th, unless they go with the IDF on a—as my friend says—like a dog and pony show, essentially a propaganda trip. But no independent journalists have got in there, and that has not changed, by the way, even though there's a supposed ceasefire, although I would question how much of a ceasefire it is. No journalists have been allowed in.

So yes, there is an utterly lacking in transparency system of mass surveillance enabled and supported again by Western companies who are providing cloud services, including again Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Oracle, Palantir. Again, this was happening before October 7th, and it's increased since.

Michael Gasser: Thank you. You have documented and spoken today about how wars around the world have provided the Israeli weapons industry with lucrative opportunities, and how the danger of whatever is called terrorism in different local contexts functions similarly for the Israeli surveillance industry. To what extent would you say that this nexus of corporations and government that make up the Israeli military-security-industrial complex is actually in the business of encouraging, normalizing, and even manufacturing conflicts—the kinds of conflicts and insecurity that benefit them so much?

Antony Loewenstein: Yeah, I think it's a huge factor. I mean, a few facts for people just to know the scale of this problem. In 2024, the global arms industry—so obviously not just Israel but the US and Germany, Russia, China—spent around $2.5 trillion US. It's the biggest number ever. It's almost certain to go up again this year. We'll get the figures, of course, early next year. Israel was a key part of that but not the only one, of course.

And I think there's no doubt that I don't see Israel's genocide in Gaza—I don't think Israel has been in Gaza since October 7th simply to test weapons. That would be nonsense, or to battle-test and therefore sell. However, it's an important however. The arms industry is central to the Israeli economy. It's never been more central. The latest figures we have were for 2024. We haven't got the figures for this year because, of course, the year is not over. And they were close to $15 billion US. It's the biggest number ever by far. The greatest part of the world that bought the biggest amount of weapons was Europe by far. Europe, particularly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, a number of European states came begging to Israel, really, to buy missile defense shields and various other weapons.

Other parts of the world—India is a huge purchaser of Israeli weapons, the Arab states, and many others. I don't think there's any question that the US, Israel, and other nations, their military-industrial complexes are excited by conflict. They encourage conflict. I'm not saying they're necessarily—I don't think Lockheed Martin is starting a war yet, but they are central to how the US and Israel and others view conflict. I mean, as people—I have these quotes in my book—ending the occupation of Palestine would be bad for business, let alone the ethical questions around that, of course.

And there are so many people now after an occupation which, as I said before, was the longest in modern times, who benefit. Yes, financially, I would argue ideologically as well. Obviously, there's a sizable number of the roughly 800,000 Jewish illegal settlers in the West Bank who are fanatics. Not all of them, but a sizable majority are. They believe God gave Jews the land there and they have the right to be there and kick Arabs out. Now, it's not every single settler thinks that, but a sizable proportion do.

And what worries me is that there are—and this was happening before Trump returned to the US, but certainly since—there's so few guardrails on this industry, the arms industry, A, and B, the pushback politically in the US, at least, is very minimal because the Democrats often have supported a growing militarization of America for decades. I mean, the mistake I think many people make in the US and looking at US politics, and this is by no means a defense of Trump at all—I think he's a menace, autocratic, fascist, no defense of Trump—but the problem in America is not just Trump at all. The militarization of the military-industrial complex over the years, in fact, often has been worse under the Democrats.

Now, Trump is on one level an anomaly and is undeniably increasing the US defense budget. I'm not denying any of that reality, but these problems didn't suddenly appear when Trump returned in January. I mean, that's just delusional to think that. And what worries me is that when you have a two-party system like the US or the UK or where I live now, Australia, there's not really a serious debate about what endless war means. There's obviously a lot of people who suffer from that, whether you're a soldier returning from Iraq with PTSD or an Iraqi civilian. A lot of people, of course, are suffering because of endless war or the prospect now—what many of us fear—is a potential either invasion of Venezuela or the bombing of Venezuela or some way to overthrow Maduro, which seems—well, who knows if it will succeed, but that certainly seems to be where we're moving considering what Trump has been doing in the last few months.

There's barely any pushback. There are some, to be sure. I'm not denying that, but very little. And I think what the impact of close to 25 years of the war on terror since 9/11 is that forever war massively benefits the Lockheed Martins of this world and various other startups that are now providing all the equipment that Trump and others want for their endless war. And when you have a growing authoritarianism at home, as I often say about Palestine, what happens in Palestine doesn't stay there. It just doesn't. Inevitably, the tactics and the tools that are used on Palestinians, which is bad enough, of course, inevitably end up being used against many others around the world, whether you're in a dictatorship or the streets of Washington or Sydney or London or New Delhi. And I think a lot of people are starting to wake up to that in the last two years, particularly since October 7th.

Michael Gasser: Let's talk about the last two years a bit. You've already mentioned some of what has happened—the increasing use of AI and the technology and so on. But if you had written your book after October 7th or today, would you have said that there's a kind of shift that's taken place in Israeli policy, or was this somehow predictable? And what would you say about the surprising—you might even say success of—the resistance in the face of the almost total destruction of Gaza? The fact that the Palestinian resistance, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, has somehow survived in spite of the assassination of all their leaders. What does this say about the battle-tested techniques that Israel is selling the world?

Antony Loewenstein: This is a really interesting question, and I often compare it to looking at how the US has viewed many of its major wars in the last 50 to 60 years. The main ones being Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Now, on the one hand, there's no question that those wars America lost. I mean, it's just undeniable that they lost in any kind of way. However—it's a very important however—they killed three million Vietnamese and maybe a million Iraqis and probably 200,000 to 300,000 Afghans. So the idea somehow that in inverted commas the Vietnamese won or the Iraqis won or the Afghans won based on those figures is nonsense. But America clearly lost.

I mention that because we're in a similar situation in Gaza where October 7th came as a shock to many. I'm not for a second saying I was expecting what happened. I mean, no one predicted exactly what happened. But at the end of my book, which as you said, Michael, the first edition came out a few months before—I have released an updated edition which has some work since October 7th—again, I didn't predict the exact event. I'm not saying I did, but what I did talk about was how what I feared would be some attack on Israel, a war, something shocking and huge and outrageous that would give in inverted commas Israel justification for a massive campaign of ethnic cleansing and war. And that's basically what happened.

October 7th was a shock. There were lots of Israelis murdered, a lot of soldiers. Israel killed many of its own citizens as well, which doesn't get enough attention. Not all of them. Hamas killed huge amounts of people, often in cold blood, committed war crimes. I'm not for a second denying any of that. But Israel also killed many of its own. Some people may have heard of the Hannibal Directive, which essentially is an Israeli military policy which basically allows, in inverted commas, the killing of your own to stop an enemy taking your people captive. Now, we don't know how many Israelis were killed by this. I'm going to say I think it was probably around 100, but it may have been more. We actually don't even know yet. We may never know.

Look, the idea that, as you say, Gaza has been leveled—it looks like the firebombing of Dresden or the nuclear bomb of Nagasaki or Hiroshima after World War II, end of World War II—but you're right, Hamas is not just alive but in fact thriving. At the beginning of the war, it was estimated that Hamas and Islamic Jihad—no one knew the exact number of fighters that Hamas and those other groups had—it was at least 30,000, probably more. And Israel has killed, no doubt, many of them. There's no question about that. Most of their leaders have been killed. But the latest figures that I hear is that there are at least 20,000 to 30,000 fighters still left. And when I say left, A, they survived, some of them, and B, they're recruiting.

And this is why I mentioned the examples of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, where you can cause mass destruction. As an insurgency, you have limited means. If you're a US military or Israel, you can drop bombs from the sky and cause unprecedented carnage. But what you don't do and can't do, I would argue, is beat an insurgency that, A, in Hamas's case has access to tunnels, but secondly has—when you utterly destroy the place, you guarantee recruitment. I mean, this is how insurgencies build.

Now, whether Hamas has a long-term future in Gaza or Palestine is not up to me. I think the idea, as the West says, that they shouldn't have a presence is delusional. There'll be some Hamas presence. What it looks like is up to Palestinians. It should be up to Palestinians. I fear that it won't be, but it certainly should be.

So you're absolutely right. The insurgency has—I mean, and again, like you saw in Afghanistan, men mostly in flip-flops and shorts who essentially—I wouldn't say brought a superpower to its knees, but certainly didn't lose. And again, I use those words very cautiously because anyone who looks at Gaza would hardly say Hamas has won. I mean, that would be delusional. I mean, Gaza doesn't exist anymore. It's been destroyed. And no one in Hamas would be standing up and saying, "What a glorious victory." I mean, maybe some would be, but that would be delusional. But as a political and military force, they survived and in fact are growing.

Michael Gasser: Okay. So it's kind of like they wanted to say how efficient in killing people instead of whether they're winning or coming to a political solution, because history shows that by any military invasion, you rarely—in fact, almost nowhere—have essentially resolved a political issue or geopolitical issue.

Well, I will go to the next question with this. So from your perspective—because we are the International Union of Scientists, and obviously we would like to see our role—for example, how complicit are the scientists, engineers, the medical doctors, knowingly or unknowingly, in sustaining this military-security apparatus in Israel and elsewhere, maybe on the national or even on the international level? And what kind of institutional transformation or the policy framework would you like to see emerging from an international union like us? And what message would you like to give to the scientists, engineers, or medical doctors who wish to reclaim science for peace and human dignity rather than militarized control?

Antony Loewenstein: Well, sadly, in Israel there has been almost wholesale complicity. I'm not saying every single Israeli, of course—there's been some very brave Israeli Jews who have spoken out, who have not been complicit at all. Of course, that's true. But let's talk briefly about the medical industry. You saw after 9/11 in the US, there were huge numbers of American doctors who eagerly participated in Guantanamo Bay and torture. It's on the record. It's not really a secret. It's outrageous. As far as I know, most never paid any career price, let alone criminal prosecution for it.

In Israel, it's been remarkably similar. You know, we hear a lot about the Hamas torture of Israeli captives, which I believe—I'm not doubting that wasn't the case. They obviously were starved, along with, by the way, Palestinians themselves were starved. But I mean, clearly a lot of Israeli captives, if you saw the images, they were skeletal. And I'm not for a second defending that. But the fact is that in Israeli prisons, before October 7th but certainly since, literally hundreds, if not thousands of Palestinians have been starved, tortured, and raped by soldiers, and also at times by Israeli doctors.

Now, again, which reminded me a lot of Guantanamo Bay—and frankly, this is a remarkable statistic: in Guantanamo Bay, which was and which of course remains open to this day, by the way, and there are still some detainees there since post-9/11 who remain rotting away just in the most horrific circumstances, "forever detainees"—there were far fewer detainees murdered by American forces than have been murdered by Israel in Palestine in the last two years. In other words, there have been at least 70 or 80 Palestinian detainees that have been murdered in Israeli prisons since October 7th. Sometimes with the direct complicity of Israeli doctors in that torture.

Now, when you talk about complicity and what should be done to address that, many of the mainstream Israeli medical associations have either said literally nothing about this, literally nothing, or defended it. They haven't defended—they won't, of course, come out and say, "We defend murder and torture"—but they obfuscate. And therefore, they're begging the West, "Don't boycott us." Now, if you're a mainstream Israeli medical association and you have not been 110% against torture and murder in Israeli prisons where your doctors operate, I mean, what can one say about that beyond the obvious, which is you are a disgrace to your profession and you need to be held accountable for that?

In the broader question, there's no doubt, as I was saying before, there's a huge number of Israeli scientists and doctors—not medical doctors but academic doctors—who have been deeply involved in the Israeli war machine. Many of them gathering intelligence on Palestinians and others. Many of them deeply involved in AI targeting in Gaza. So the mass killing of civilians. And it's worth saying, despite what so much we hear in the media around that, Israel is pinpoint targeting terrorists—mass destruction was the point. That was the point.

And one of—there's a—soon after 9/11, often people confuse two events because they're in some ways remarkably similar in certain ways—but soon after October 7th, I should say, I spoke to a few sources. One of the key aims of the Israeli mission in Gaza can be described in one word: revenge. It's so blatantly obvious what was going on there, that you are killing and destroying vast areas of the territory. That was the point. It wasn't to go after, "Oh, but we're going to go after the so-called Hamas terrorists." No, the point is to kill as many Palestinians as possible.

And the lack of institutional opposition to that within Israel, as I might add, was very similar to the lack of institutional opposition in the US after 9/11, speaks volumes. And I'm not saying again every doctor in the US was working in Guantanamo Bay. Of course they weren't.

But you know, Israel—and I want to finish on this point. I think a lot of people need to be aware of this. So much in the Western press obsesses over Netanyahu. Of course, he's the prime minister. You can't ignore him, and he's an important figure, unfortunately. He's the leader of the country. He should be talked about. But Netanyahu is not the problem in Israel. The problem goes far, far deeper than one man. As I might add, in the US, Trump is not the only issue. He's a unique historical figure in a way, but the problem is not just him. He was voted for by 80 million Americans, give or take. So a lot of people like what Trump stands for.

Clearly in Israel, the polling since October 7th really shows a deeply genocidal society. What do I mean by that? A majority of Israeli Jews in poll after poll supported the mass starvation of Palestinians in Gaza. Supported ethnic cleansing in Gaza. These are not my opinions. This is what the polling in Israel showed. And people can Google that if they don't believe me. It's easy to find online.

Now, that's not about Netanyahu. I mean, he's the prime minister and he should be held to account, of course, but the problem is far, far deeper than that. And I say this to in some ways answer your question that there's been almost wholesale institutional complicity.

And to me, like you had after the genocide in Rwanda, for example, some of the people who the International Criminal Court prosecuted were not just those who actually murdered people with their own hands. It was people, for example, who worked in the media. They did not kill one single person. They didn't shoot anyone. They didn't kill anyone, but they were inciting genocide, basically. And some of them have been found guilty of that. Exactly the same thing happened in Israel in parts of the media, parts of the medical profession—people can find this online—who were calling for, I mean, you have leading figures in Israel's medical profession on social media calling for ethnic cleansing.

Now, I mean, that's—I mean, that's the mic drop. That's your answer. What can one say? Again, not everybody, but huge amounts of people. They were caught up in what I call genocidal mania. And that has not changed in Israel. It is still there and it runs deep.

Michael Gasser: Well, Antony, thank you for this answer. I just want to—because you mentioned the problems and the complicity—somehow we are entangled into this military-industrial complex or even in the ongoing genocide in Gaza. But if we want to, let's say, be part of the other side where we don't want to be complicit—yes, on an individual level, on the policy level, institutional level—but maybe your opinion, what should we do?

Antony Loewenstein: Well, there's a few things. I think the only way that this situation will eventually end or certainly change is massive international pressure. It's an obvious thing to say, but it's worth saying. I'm not talking about from Trump or political figures. I mean, obviously that would be lovely, but it's hard to see that happening when you have Donald Trump in the White House.

As with what ended apartheid in South Africa—and having spoken to many people who were involved in those campaigns, I was alive but I was too young to be involved—it was huge amounts of isolation and boycotting South African institutions that were deeply complicit in that regime of apartheid. Now, the idea that you would have mainstream Israeli medical associations given legitimacy in the West—as one example, they need to be isolated and boycotted. You don't do partnerships. You don't, as individuals or groups, partner with Hebrew University or the Technion, which have been deeply complicit in the development of weapons and surveillance for years. You don't do that.

This is the way that you make a statement as someone who is not involved directly in politics. We do not accept the fact that you have been complicit in these crimes. Whether you have done it individually, maybe not, but your institution has, and therefore we cannot partner with you. That is how you do it.

And I think there is real scope for the International Union of Scientists to be doing that because you work in so many different areas. And there are many, many Israeli institutions which are very keen to maintain that so-called legitimacy, to be part of the so-called normal civilized world. I use those terms very advisedly, but you know what I mean when I say that. And they're going to be looking even more so now that the war is at least in theory winding down. I mean, I'm very skeptical, which we won't get into, but we're now being told that we're moving to the next phase and there's going to be rebuilding and all the other nonsense, which I think is not likely to happen very quickly, if at all.

These institutions want to partner with Western organizations. That's what they want, and we should say no. If you have, as I said, the head of Israel's medical association calling for ethnic cleansing—people can Google that if they—I can't remember the name of the person off the top of my head—you do not partner with those people. There's no way to kind of talk through the issues. I mean, you can talk to them, sure, but you don't partner with them. I mean, it's a no-brainer to me.

So that's how you do it. You isolate. It may be an imperfect tool, so to speak, but I do not see any other viable way, and it has worked in other contexts, in other conflicts. There's no reason why it can't work here, even more so because Israel still maintains so much international support—US, Europe, the Arab countries, etc.

Additional Discussion with Assaf Kfoury

Manabendra Nath Bera: Thank you, Antony. And also joining us for this discussion is Professor Assaf Kfoury. Assaf is also an international organizing committee member of the International Union of Scientists. So Assaf, please, if you have some questions, please.

Assaf Kfoury: Well, in a way, the very last question in a way brought up some of the things that I've been thinking about. Can you hear me, Antony?

Antony Loewenstein: Yes, I can.

Assaf Kfoury: Yeah. I think you brought up many important points. For example, I'm here in the United States myself, and the extent to which people would like not to remember—I'm talking about commentators—not to remember what was before October 7th. And you pointed out this is not only October 7th. You pointed out it's not even '67. It's not even '48. There was a recent book—I'm sure you heard about it—by the Palestinian historian Rashid Khalidi. The title is The Hundred Years' War on Palestine.

Antony Loewenstein: Yes, I've got it just out of—just out of sight there. Yes.

Assaf Kfoury: Okay. There was another book about, I think, seven, eight years ago that is in harmony with that book by Rashid Khalidi. It's based on archival work, and the title is Dying to Forget. It's based on archival work that goes back all the way to '48, '49, and '50. And what is being revealed in that book—and it's totally compatible with what Rashid Khalidi says—is that already in '48, '49, and '50, the State Department and the Defense Department in the United States—these are based on archives in Washington—was already planning for Israel to be an enforcer and a partner in the pursuit of US global interests.

Antony Loewenstein: Yeah.

Assaf Kfoury: So it's not, as you point out, it's way before October 7th. It's way before—you know, we can—and you have many pointers to that history in your book. I want to connect this to your other book, your more recent book. I'll tell you why. So you have another book that came more recently, or it's a collection of essays more recently.

Antony Loewenstein: Yes, yes.

Assaf Kfoury: The title—I'm reading it in front of me—is After Zionism: One State for Israel and Palestine. I've read a few pages. I didn't read the whole thing. Some of the authors are in the United States. They write often.

And given the reality of Israel, the state of Israel, given that history, given what you just pointed out a few minutes ago—this is not just the government. This is a place where 82%—this is the last poll—82% of that population are in support of ethnic cleansing. They are supporting what the government is doing in Gaza. It's very difficult to absorb that and to understand how this is going to be. And then when you—in that collection of essays, basically—yes, you say it in the introduction of your other book, The Palestine Laboratory—the only way—it's not going to happen tomorrow, it's not going to happen next year, in five years—the only way we're going to come out of that is a one state where everybody between the river and the sea will have equal rights.

And then, I mean, here's the question: given that reality, have you given some thought to what are possible stages? You mentioned external pressure. Do you foresee—can you—do you have some hope? What will be stage one, stage two, stage three toward that ultimate goal?

Antony Loewenstein: Well, certainly what I don't have hope for is it coming from within. It seems almost inconceivable. I mean, obviously putting aside the Arab Palestinian population, of course—I'm talking about the Israeli Jewish population—that they suddenly wake up tomorrow, next week, next year, and say, "Gee, this occupation is terrible." Now, not every Israeli supports the occupation. I'm not saying they do, but as you rightly correctly say, Assaf, based on a lot of this polling, particularly since October 7th, but some of this goes long before, there is a deep-seated—I see it as contempt, hatred, fear, misunderstanding, ignorance, call it whatever you want—by a majority of Israeli Jews towards Palestinians.

I think a lot of people don't realize that in the Israeli media, in much of the Israeli public space, Palestinians are largely ignored. And if they're talked about, they're framed as a security threat. And again, this was happening long before October 7th.

I do not see a situation where enough Israeli Jews suddenly rise up and say "enough" without outside pressure. So you ask briefly what are those steps? I mean, one of the steps would be—and I noticed I was encouraged by this in the last few months—that the Israeli arms industry, which we've been talking about, was for the first time in living memory losing contracts. The Spanish government in the last three or four months has canceled around $1 billion US of contracts. Now, that might change now that the in inverted commas war is over. We'll have to wait and see. The Philippines, which was a large purchaser of weapons from Israel, has also announced that they would stop purchasing.

Now, on its own, that's not going to bring down the Israeli state or have a one-state solution. Of course not. But I think that the defense industry remains an Achilles heel. I've thought that for a long time. It's a central part now of the Israeli economy and has been for years, but particularly in the last few years.

And I also think that a very powerful way that Israel would feel isolated is actually a cultural boycott, which means artists and others don't tour there, don't speak there, don't play their music there. I note during—about three or four months ago now—a sizable number of American, particularly American Hollywood actors, directors, etc., said that they would refuse to work with Israeli companies on any future projects. Now, again, on its own, that doesn't bring down the Israeli state, but that is—not fairly, it's unprecedented. It's unprecedented. It's never happened with Israel. That's how it happened with South Africa.

So I think—and finally, the final part of my answer is the challenge that many in the so-called pro-Palestine movement, for want of a better expression, have. How do you take the unprecedented amount of public outcry, anger, marching in the streets and take that to political action? And there's no simple answer to that. It's certainly, in my view, not thinking about the Democratic Party in America. Not that people on this call might think it is, but I don't think it's going down that particular path. But at the same time, in the US, that is a real challenge.

I don't have a simple answer to that. I think obviously there are other political parties apart from the Republicans and Democrats. Of course there are. But they're not likely to make the White House, assuming there's even an election in three years. I saw today Steve Bannon, one of Trump's advisers, says, "Oh, we're very sure Trump's going to run for a third term. It's happening. It's not even up for debate anymore." It's like, okay, this is where America is heading. I'm not saying it's inevitable, but this seems to be where America is heading.

So I think those kinds of pressure points—cultural boycotts, institutional boycotts, and trying to put pressure on the defense industry to almost shame them, which is not so easy for a corrupt industry like that—is a really important thing. But it's going to be bloody hard is the short answer. And I do think it's—finally, yes, I think a one state is something I've believed in for a long time. I think it's inevitable, but it ain't going to happen overnight, and it's going to be a lot of pain and bloodshed before we get there.

Audience Q&A

Michael Gasser: So, Antony, we're scheduled for an hour, but we actually have a number of questions from people watching. I wonder if you have a few minutes you could—

Antony Loewenstein: Sure, sure. I'll give short answers. So let's do it.

Michael Gasser: Yes. So there we go. "Isn't it a motive for relying on target selection to AI—apart from efficiency—that it somehow creates the illusion that no one is responsible for decisions no sane person would like to take?" I do like the fact that the commenter is "The Emperor Has No Pants." Whoever that person is, I like your handle there.

Antony Loewenstein: Well, yes is the short answer. I mean, that is definitely part of it. And although—the problem that Israel has with that is that we now know that many of the major Silicon Valley companies have been directly involved. Microsoft, Google, Amazon, etc. And interestingly, in the last month or so, some people may have seen that Microsoft, which had contracts with Israel before October 7th but accelerated after because Israel was in such demand for massive cloud space to put all the data they were using in their war machine—they needed Microsoft to help them, essentially. There was a story a few months ago in The Guardian, the British newspaper, which caused a bit of concern, and Microsoft apparently is no longer providing that part of the cloud service to Israel. That's what they claim.

Now, I have no way of checking that. I'm a bit skeptical. I guess what I'm saying is that public shaming can work. And I think also just—to finally answer that question—I think it also goes to the heart that we have been told for years that the whole so-called benefit of AI warfare is it's going to be more precise. It's going to be—war is going to be cleaner. Well, I mean, look at Gaza. As I said, the point in Gaza was not that. The point, in fact, was the opposite. The point was to literally just cause carnage, which is what—and that was mission accomplished, right?

As I said, we can talk about how Hamas and Islamic Jihad is still standing, which they are somehow. I mean, often I wonder how that actually has happened after two years. But people are looking around Gaza and saying, "Well, what is left?" I mean, if that's what in inverted commas victory looks like, God help us.

Michael Gasser: "As a researcher in new technologies, quantum technologies, what can I do to make sure my findings are not used in the battlefield or for oppression?"

Antony Loewenstein: Yeah, this is a good question. I mean, obviously I don't know who this particular—the lady, whoever she might be working for as a company—but one of the things that has been quite inspiring to me is seeing all these Google and Amazon workers while they were still working, protesting about their company's complicity with Israel. Now, I'm not suggesting that that protest led to the companies radically changing their policies. It didn't. It caused a lot of upset and public outcry and public awareness because these individuals—some of them had been previously working, potentially working for a company that was so complicit.

So look, it's a hard question to answer with certainty. How do you make sure your findings—I mean, certainly don't work with any of the major Silicon Valley tech companies that you know are working with Israel. That would be a good start for one. And there are huge amounts—I mean, one of the things which we haven't got time to go into detail, but one of the things that I've been looking into more recently is, you know, Silicon Valley in the US always sold itself as kind of liberal and progressive and wanting to connect people with the world. I mean, that was the Mark Zuckerberg line for Facebook. I think it was always BS, but that's what he used to say and still does so.

And I think traditionally many in Silicon Valley would have voted for the Democrats. So they were kind of probably center-leftish. I mean, I would question how left the Democrats are, but center-left at least on paper. But what's happened in the last really year or so is that there's been a radical shift to the right in Silicon Valley. I'm not saying everybody there is, but much of the so-called leadership is, many of the companies are. Yes, it's partly to try to get in bed with Trump, but it's actually more than that. It's an ideological shift to believe that Silicon Valley—as the book written by the head of Palantir was saying this year—that our job as Silicon Valley types should be to make sure that the West dominates militarily forever. And I'm paraphrasing what he said. Alex Karp is his name.

So don't work for Palantir also. So I guess be aware that this is the direction many of these companies are heading. A desire to partner with Israel and the US military-industrial complex is becoming much more uncontroversial, in fact, and that needs to be rejected strongly.

Michael Gasser: "When Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, Palestinian-British surgeon working as an aid doctor in Gaza, told that the Israeli government was stealing dead bodies to examine Israeli-made bullets, is this continued?"

Antony Loewenstein: Yeah, I guess the question could be, is that true? It's very hard to get confirmation about this. I mean, I've read this as well. Well, I mean, there have been allegations that have happened, by the way, before October 7th as well about Israel stealing organs as well, which I read about again recently. I'm not saying it's never happened. There's some evidence that it has in years past. I don't think it's been on a massive scale. And because there's been—it's been essentially a war zone for two years, it's almost impossible to actually get, you know, in the hospitals and the doctors, the Palestinians are so overwhelmed by the fact that the hospitals have all been destroyed and bombed and they're just trying to survive day-to-day.

So, yeah, I mean, I guess—we need more research is the short answer.

Michael Gasser: "The lines between corporations and governments are blurred. This poses a problem for regulation and protection of our rights. Is there any hope for the international institutions to rein this in?"

Antony Loewenstein: I don't want to say to people that there's not, because that would be a depressing way to end the event, wouldn't it? Well, as I mentioned before, when it comes to, say, spyware, of which Israel is not the only player but a key one, there has been none really. The EU, as I said, flirted with it and hasn't really gone anywhere because no country seems to want to do it because they're so keen to want to have access to the spyware themselves.

There is some moves—I wouldn't say I'm massively encouraged, but at least there is some increasing regulation or at least an attempt at some form of regulation in the EU in relation to AI and copyright. As someone who's a writer and a journalist, I'm well aware that my books have been stolen by many of the big AI companies in their large language models. Of course, I never got compensation for that. The EU at least is more open to having those conversations, but I see it in some ways with AI stealing all our information quite similar to how I see Uber. Very different company, of course. Uber comes into all these countries and essentially shafts all the taxi companies, breaks all the laws, and then eventually governments simply accept their presence rather than kicking them out.

In other words, Uber has become so ubiquitous in so many countries now that there's a sense that governments are scared to get rid of them because of the massive lobbying power that these companies have. And with AI, I feel it's the same. I mean, AI companies, many of them have hoovered up and stolen, in theory, every single piece of information that's on the internet without compensation. And the problem they're having now is they've run out of data. They've run out of information because they've stolen everything, right? Not that I feel sorry for them, by the way, but I mean, that's the reality.

So I mean, I am eternally frustrated with the lack of any serious AI regulation, including in the US, which won't happen while Trump's in power. That's for sure. He seems to be embracing them even more.

Closing Remarks

Manabendra Nath Bera: Thank you. Thank you, Antony. Actually, for the audience, we need to finish the discussion. So obviously, firstly, I would like to extend my thanks to Antony for the insightful discussion. I also thankfully acknowledge the active participation of our audience which made this discussion interactive and engaging.

The discussion has offered an in-depth analysis of how Palestine has become a testing ground for the Israeli military complex, ranging from surveillance and home demolitions to indefinite detention and brutality, alongside the high-tech innovations that fuel the so-called "startup nation." The disquieting use of information and military technology for destructive aims, leading to the tragic loss of innocent lives and violation of every human right and the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people. It is a crime against humanity.

As scientific and technological research is increasingly being shaped towards military applications, we are compelled to confront our role in the widespread weaponization of our innovation. This, in turn, facilitates the escalation of regional and global conflicts within the complex military-industrial framework.

Modern science and technology—from the development of lethal weapons and invasive surveillance systems to the enhancement of AI-powered arms—are being used in ways that dehumanize and threaten human life. Techniques refined in international conflicts are now being employed domestically to curtail freedoms, suppress dissent, and commit serious human rights abuses.

The growing diversion of research and development funding, funded by major imperialist powers, towards military purposes has transformed the global arms race into a contest of scientific and technological supremacy.

As scientists, engineers, and physicians, we are the driving force behind these advancements. It is imperative that we take a principled stand against our complicity in this military-industrial complex and work toward a world where science serves humanity, upholding the values of life, mutual respect, social responsibility, and environmental preservation.

This mission cannot be achieved through individual efforts alone. We must unite, organize, and act collectively to uphold our responsibility to protect humanity and the planet. To this end, we have established the International Union of Scientists Against Militarism and Destructive Use of Science and Technology. And we invite you to join this global platform and contribute to our shared objectives. Please support us by signing up or subscribing on our website.

As we conclude, I would like to once again thank Antony Loewenstein for generously sharing his time and insights. A special thanks to our audience—your participation was key to making this event a success. I'm also grateful to Natalya, Michael, Adam, and Assaf for expertly facilitating the discussion and coordination, and particularly to Adam for managing the online platforms.

Finally, sincere thanks to the organizing committee members of the International Union of Scientists for their dedication in bringing this event to life.

With that, we officially close today's event and look forward to welcoming you on board in our efforts for a better tomorrow. Thank you very much, everyone.

Antony Loewenstein: Thank you. Thank you so much, everybody. Thank you for having me. It's been a great conversation.

All: Thank you. Thank you.

End of transcript

Event details

Friday 24 October 2025
10:00 UTC (GMT)
iuscientists.org
Streaming on YouTube: LINK
Streaming on Rumble: LINK
Streaming on X.com/Twitter

Live interview with award-winning journalist Antony Loewenstein on the chilling political economy of Israel’s military-industrial complex and how the occupation of Palestine functions as a laboratory for testing weapons on civilians. How do scientists and engineers sustain this cycle of destruction, and how we can confront it.

YouTube livestream: https://www.youtube.com/live/MCPHPxzY3jE
Streaming on Rumble: https://rumble.com/v70err2-palestine-laboratory-ius-interview-with-antony-loewenstein.html
Streaming on X.com/Twitter

About the author

Antony Loewenstein is a German-Australian investigative reporter, author, and filmmaker. His 2023 book The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World won the 2023 Walkley Book Award and has been translated into nine languages. He co-edited the book After Zionism: One State For Israel And Palestine.

Loewenstein's latest documentaries, The Palestine Laboratory and Germany’s Israel Obsession, premiered in 2025 and are now streaming free on Al Jazeera:
• The Palestine Laboratory. Watch: Episode 1. Episode 2.
• Germany’s Israel Obsession. Watch here.