# Verso Q&A with Antony Loewenstein, author of *The Palestine Laboratory* > *This is the publisher's promotional question-and-answer with Antony Loewenstein, the Australian journalist whose 2023 book* The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World *(Verso; winner of the 2023 Walkley non-fiction journalism prize) advances the thesis that surveillance and weapons systems field-tested on Palestinians are exported worldwide, including to US border and policing agencies. It matters to the Arkansas surveillance investigation as the originating statement of the "Palestine laboratory" export thesis, in the author's own words, and because it names the specific Israeli vendors (Elbit, NSO Group) and the US-police-tourism dynamic that situates the wiki's vendors in a larger pattern — while keeping NSO/Pegasus spyware analytically distinct from other surveillance categories.* ## Source metadata - **Publisher:** Verso Books (versobooks.com), the book's publisher - **URL:** https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/q-a-with-antony-loewenstein-author-of-the-palestine-laboratory - **Archived:** 2026-06-07 via firecrawl_scrape (markdown) - **Tier:** 3 (established publisher Q&A / author primary statement) ## Extract — verbatim (lightly cleaned) Verso framing paragraph: > "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." Loewenstein, on what he researched: > "As the years progressed, I began to research the ways in which Israel was using the Palestinians as guinea pigs when developing the most 'effective' ways to manage and monitor them; from 'smart' walls to phone hacking tools and drones to facial recognition technology. I often saw these with my own eyes in Palestine and spoke to both Israelis and Palestinians involved in different sides of the battle." Loewenstein, on where the technologies are deployed (US/Mexico border, Elbit): > "There's a major Israeli presence on the US/Mexico border with the use of massive Israeli-built surveillance towers, made by Israel's biggest defense company, Elbit, who work extensively across Palestine. The surveillance towers on the US/Mexico border hugely impact both refugees and Native Americans." Loewenstein, on US police "fetishization" of the Israeli experience (the War on Terror question): > "Almost from the day of the attacks, Israeli spokespeople sold the message that now the world finally understood what the Jewish state had known for decades; endless war on Islamist violence was an unavoidable reality. There was a fetishization of the Israeli experience, with many US police chiefs and officers going to Israel to 'learn' the best ways to do their jobs, and appropriation of Israeli language when fighting the US-backed 'war on terror'." Loewenstein naming the company production line (Unit 8200 origins): > "When these recruits leave the military, a huge number launch tech companies in the areas of surveillance, phone hacking and intelligence gathering. Per capita Israel has some of the highest number of these corporations in the world. ... highly decorated intelligence officers in Unit 8200 have gone on to build highly successful companies that often develop some of the sophisticated surveillance and intelligence gathering tools, sold to nations as diverse as Saudi Arabia and Myanmar." Loewenstein, on the "battle-tested" marketing mechanism (lab and showroom): > "The occupation, in the West Bank and Gaza, is the perfect place to develop and test new weapons systems including surveillance drones, intelligence gathering tools and artificial intelligence weapons. Once they've been used against Palestinians, the relevant companies market them at global weapons fairs. My book shows how 'battle-tested' defense equipment is promoted with videos and photos taken in Palestine to show how 'effective' it is to global buyers." Loewenstein, on NSO Group / Pegasus specifically (kept distinct as spyware, state-linked): > "NSO Group isn't a private company that's gone rogue. It's intimately tied to Israel and is used by successive Israeli governments over the last 15 years as a diplomatic tool to attract new friends. ... NSO Group and the many other, less known Israeli surveillance firms are only private in name." Loewenstein listing example firms by name: > "From Elbit to NSO Group and Cytrox (a largely unknown Israeli company that's developed Pegasus-style infrastructure) to Raphael Defense Systems, these kinds of corporations have helped Israel to become one of the biggest defense sellers on the planet." Note on book identity (book strip): > "Winner of the 2023 Walkley non fiction journalism prize. Finalist for the 2023 Moore Prize for Human Rights Writing."