How is Israel’s military tech marketed abroad? | The Palestine Laboratory E2 | Featured Documentary
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Feb 7, 2025
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In Episode 2 of "The Palestine Laboratory", journalist and author Antony Loewenstein investigates how surveillance and military technology developed by Israel and tested on Palestinians is marketed abroad. He finds out how the latest Israeli technology is being used to monitor refugees and migrants in Greece and along the US-Mexico border.
Loewenstein visits Mexico to explore its use of Israeli spyware and travels to India to find out how a thriving arms trade is fostering close links between the two nations. In South Africa, he uncovers a hidden aspect of the country's history which saw a secret relationship between the apartheid-era government and Israel centred on a clandestine arms trade and shared values.
What he reveals is a picture of how the "technology of occupation" developed on Palestinians is also used to subjugate people and surveil political dissidents, human rights defenders and journalists all over the world.
Loewenstein concludes by asking if the countries buying these systems are actually looking for more than just another weapon, but instead buying into a wider ideology of the separation and control of "unwanted" populations, be they protesting farmers, political dissidents, or refugees.
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Transcript
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Transcript
[Music]
in the first episode we looked at how Israel's arms and surveillance industry uses its occupation of Palestine as a
laboratory to test products that then sells around the world in this episode I'm visiting some
of those customers to see what exactly gets exported is it just weapons and technology or something more
profound we're in Tucson Arizona and it is searingly hot that can smell the
freedom here but that much vaunted Freedom needs regular enforcement especially as we're right on the border
with Mexico since 2021 more than 6 million refugees and migrants have been
detained Crossing into the USA Overland driven by collapsing economies violence
and climate change one thing that's really clear is that what Israel has been doing for
decades in Palestine is very attractive to people who are trying to secure the the US Mexico border so the technology
and the companies who are operating in Palestine are often appearing other countries around the world including
right here on the US Mexico [Music] border but first to understand what it
means to cross the border here I'm heading into the desert to meet Joel Smith he describes the challenges facing
the migrants the object is to get get to the Tucson area and get out of here get out
of the desert itself so the what they have a choice of now is going across the
mountains to avoid border patrol they don't like the inaccessible areas you can't get to without a vehicle the US
Mexico crossing is the deadliest land route for refugees in the world with over 600 deaths recorded in
2022 and the more remote the route the more dangerous it is how's it look little bit dirty
usually they come from uh places where they really don't understand deserts right they think there's going to be a
stream they think there's going to be a creek somewhere they can get get water from there's absolutely nothing here
right but people aren't dying of starvation out here they're dying at
TH and what forces people to take these precarious roots of course is the famous
wall along the border with Mexico in Arizona illegal traffic
dropped 92% if you really want to find out how effective a wall is just ask
Israel this section predates president Trump but under his first Administration
Israeli firm Ela was paid half a million dollars to come up with prototypes for
his dream of a coast to coast wall what we see here is the physical fence we
don't see huge amounts of surveillance technology but we know it's here there are very parts of this border which use
Israeli made Elbert surveillance towers and now we're going to look for
those surveillance towers and we're going to speak to one of the world's experts about it Todd Miller is a journalist who's been studying the US
Mexico border for over 15 years he's taking me to see one of the 55 Israeli
Elbert surveillance Towers dotted across this landscape they're actually working
together and that's that's why they call this the virtual wall right these towers are equipped with night vision cameras
that that could see at least 7.5 miles away um Regular cameras thermal energy
cameras and a ground sweeping radar system that supposedly has a uh 13 mile
radius probably we're standing on underground motion sensors so if you are walking and you step on one it sends off
a beeping sound in like the command and control center where they're watching
the video feeds then they're able to zoom in like say they see somebody walking on the hill or us or US they
might be zooming in right on us at this at this very moment on one visit here a
border patrol agent boasted to him that just seeing the towers on the hill forc
migrants to take more remote routes and then he said well then we go to what is
a choke point and we intercept the people when they come through the choke point there's a correlation between
people dying and these towers that work in tandem with the actual border
wall I'm with the San Diego Sheriff's Department I'm the homeland security director for the state of Alabama
American law enforcement has been turning to Israel for training and Equipment since 911 what is happening
this evening is a compelling chapter in the war on terror tonight's meeting is the
culmination of a week in which top American law enforcement officials traveled to Israel to meet their
counterparts and that relationship has boosted sales of Israel's so-called Homeland Security
technology the Arizona police are among many US forces using the services of Israeli company celebrite this allows
them to extract all the data from mobiles in their possession without a
password and the Border has been patrolled by a heres 450 drone also made
by Elbert systems this is the promo created in the bid for the towers
contract phrases like securing the world's most challenging borders are how the Israeli companies remind customers
that their products might have been tested in Palestine the tech park at the
University of Arizona was Keen to get Israeli companies to locate here at the time Elbert was awarded the tower
contract we are going to meet Bruce Wright who
used to head the Arizona Tech Park he was a big figure in encouraging Israeli
companies to come and work here and train so we're going to meet him in his gated
[Music] community good to meet you welcome to
Tucson Elbert is a Israeli based company but they created a US subsidiary and
they wanted to demonstrate this technology along the Mexico border we jumped on that opportunity because of
our knowledge and understanding of Israel and what was happening with that technology in Israel they were in some
ways very far ahead of the United States and trying to use technology to manage their problems whether they be you know
terrorism or border crossings or whatever it might be National border security is often
challenged by difficult topographic conditions and vast areas of Interest since Elbert secured the $200 million
Arizona deal the fixed Towers have made it into the current torchex borders promo Elbert systems has the technology
knowhow and real world operational experience inte torch X is also used by
the Israeli Army on the border with Gaza and Coastal protection
Solutions this is Amy Juan and the co-op Farm in the tono Odum Nation as far as
the eye can see so yeah we're pretty special Farm because their land crosses the US Mexico order they have the
surveillance Towers across their territory it's a loss of privacy it's a loss of freedom and if anything it's not
just them keeping an eye on movement across the border it's them keeping an eye on
us what border patrol presence has done was basically make everybody
suspect to go from a people and a place that have basically been left alone um
for centuries to being an occup P militarized Community it is very
traumatizing what's been so clear being here in Arizona is that there is not just a direct connection between what's
happening in Palestine and here on the US Mexico border in a physical sense but also an ideological sense the perception
in the US in some parts is that Israel has been successful in managing pushing back
Palestinians and the same thing can be done here to push people migrants in
more and more Extreme Ways which inevitably leads to more deaths Mexico is our next destination so
we're heading to the Border Town of nogalas which is a major crossing point
where in the line to cross from the US to Mexico I you have to turn the camera off and you can't take guns either just
to keep the authorities happy here we are Mexico City so
loud this incredible country of 130 million people is renowned for its
culture food and music but it's almost as well known for
its ongoing battles with drug cartels 430,000 people have been killed
since the start of this drug war nearly two decades
ago this roundabout in the center of Mexico City is dedicated to some of the
estimated 60,000 people who have been disappeared often with a collusion of law
enforcement in 2014 there were 43 students who disappeared 10 years on
there's been no justice no accountability it's a huge Scandal here and remarkably there's actually a real
deep connection to Israeli spyware Eduardo abanes has been a regular at this protest encampment for
the last 10 years
three were killed and the remaining 43 were taken into custody by local police
they have not been seen since various investigations have revealed the involvement of the army but failed to
locate the bodies of the missing
led by the families the movement for justice was seen as a thresh by successive
governments and the Israeli spy we Pegasus was deployed on
them we're going to see Centro Pro a legal firm here in Mexico City who
represented some of the 43 disappeared families and to find out how they were Pegasus which appears to be a verb now
in 2016 things were tense as the lawyers contested the government's account of
what had happened to the missing and then their private phone calls were suddenly all over the national media I
received messages of um phone call that I have
had with one of the parents of the 43 that was being published in a big
newspaper from Mexico
this phone call with one of the parents was presented in a way that suggested
that we were talking about dirty money and the whole presentation was signed by
a drug cartel and so on when that happened we were shocked it was my voice
it was a private phone call you become afraid of what else can they have of
your private life then in 2022 Apple's customer protection system alerted them
that they were the subject of a state sponsored attack nowadays you have everything on your phone there is
nothing that we can do basically to prevent it what everybody says is that
this technology evolves faster than what we can do you know in a small NGO in
Mexico City at the time of the first attack no one knew how this had happened
or who else might be targeted until this man helped identify
the Spy wear hi hi but before we could talk he wanted to check that my phone
wasn't infected it will not only compromise you but every everyone who has contacted you so it's it's
surveillance that goes beyond their main target what we're going to do is that we're going to see if we can find
something Pegasus can now get into your phone without the user needing to click a link it takes control of your camera
your microphone and broadcast it to those controlling the software they can see your location
access your data and see what's on your screen including encrypted messaging apps well it's good that's negative
there yeah this phone didn't show signs of the types of infections that we check for including Pegasus how often do you
use these tools to check we talking daily yeah almost when the lawyer phones were first compromised in 2016 Lewis
started investigating who was behind it this is the first contract to get access
to Pegasus almost $3 million and it mentions also the number of targets
because normally the number of licenses that that this particular client acquired which were 500 that means that
you can spy 500 phones at the same time during this period 10,000 or even more people were
targeted with Pegasus in Mexico many of which were journalist humor righted offenders activists um politicians government
officials themselves another sales document this one from 2022 revealed the
Mexican Army was acting in an unconstitutional way heading of the email and the document it's called
officios mortales or like deadly document something like that is that
supposed to be funny or I don't know it's supposed to be funny or is supposed to like indicate that it's very secret
the final user of this director of Military Intelligence Center this agency
was secret but it was also illegal they don't have any legal authorization to do
surveillance Mexico's Army is huge almost state within a state and Mexico
is the world's biggest user of Pegasus spyware it's controlled by the Army intelligence Center behind gate four of
this massive Camp it's totally secretive there's no
way can actually get in there have a chat which would be nice love to see the
files despite the evidence the Army still denies they use Pegasus and that
Dynamic gives Israel potential leverage over Pegasus
customers they could reveal their clients they they have allegedly backups of all the people have
that have been surveilled definitely that gives Israel power over the Mexican position from for example the Mexican
Army has no legal basis to acquire or deploy a tool like Pegasus that
definitely plays a role into how belligerent The Mexican government or
how outspoken it is on uh issues like the apar or genocide going on in in
Palestine after gaining access to Pegasus in 2011 Mexico's tradition of
supporting Palestine at the United Nations shifted and after Netanyahu visited in 2017 Mexico announced it
would abstain on several Pro Palestine resolutions the use of Israeli
technology is even more profoundly embedded in the European
Union the EU is the second largest buyer of Israeli
weapons Israeli so-called smart fence technology is being installed on Europe's land borders to control
migration and we're here in Samos Greece just 2 kilm from Turkey to see how
Israeli surveillance Tech is Central to the eu's vision for border security we're meeting Petra molner who is an
anthropologist and a global expert on migration and borders good to see you by
Samos I think is a really important place to try and understand because it
was one of the first first camps that was constructed to deal with uh a mass
influx of people who were escaping the Syrian War back in 2015 2016 on the
hillside just outside the main town of Vy the Old Camp was built for 650 people
but was rapidly overwhelmed with up to 9,000 it was a bustling City within a
city almost kind of spilling down the hillside like a glass of milk into the city of V there people had to build
their own ramp shackle tense and there were reports of rape and violence I mean obviously the conditions were horrific
but it had a bit of like a community feeling to
it people were surviving there was a school people would cook and spend time
together as we kept getting more and more people on the island um the authorities decided that something had
to be done to this camp and they they obviously decided they want to build something more Hightech and bigger yeah
that's right with money from the European Union and Samos was the first camp like this that was constructed it's
just over the hill there and it is very very different from from this
one in 2021 thousands of refugees were moved to the new closed control Access
Center or CCAC much better living condition but at
the same time increase security provisions for the benefit of Asylum Seekers of the benefit of the staff and
of the benefit of the local communities this CCAC is up a hill 8 km from the
town what really strikes you first like it's a massive block of concrete it's
sunbaked it's so hot it's just you know there's very little vegetation inside the camp and also so much surveillance
when we went in for the official opening we were able to go inside the containers where people are are living and there
are cameras in the corridors there's also cameras on some of the taller poles
people have reported drone usage and and where the data is going and who it's being shared with is not exactly clear
so what is it like to live there Ry came from Syria and was moved from the old Camp to the CCAC you see the wires the
cameras the security guard the police like where am I I'm in Guantanamo now
sometimes I was EX in my container to take a fresh air like I I cannot be in
this box you look here like there is a camera you look there like there is a camera you turn like this there is a
camera and then beside that like everywhere there are police officer
security guard you're controlled your life it's under control
24/7 you feel like everyone like is staring at you like as you you are
like like uh the most dangerous person in the
world I want to know what all this surveillance is for so I'm meeting an NGO that provides legal support to
Asylum Seekers when people are registered in the Clos control Access Center they're
required to give their fingerprints multiple times and part of this is for the Asylum procedure it's for the
eurodac system that's an eu-wide database of fingerprints of Asylum Seekers but it's also for edion this uh
biometric AI technology that the CCAC has in place that's 100% funded by the
EU so they have a biometric card and when they leave the facility and when they come back in they have to scan the
card and scan their fingerprint to be able to enter and exit when you look at the ministry of
migrations website you can see that they report that there's uh Behavioral or motion recognition analytics that is
being used um in the centavo system to our understanding it's that there's CCTV
cameras and drones um which are then um live streamed to a control center in
Athens this is known as centor and controls the seos CCAC and four other
similar camps at the heart of it is a system supplied by octopus an Israeli
firm whose customers include the Israeli military octopus allows simple
management of entire security events from one screen and on Samos we discovered that the behavioral analytics
is done by Israeli company visites which is supported by the Israeli Army and
intelligence Services it goes to these policies of exclusion and and Technologies of control I mean I was in
the occupied West Bank last year uh and some of the infrastructure that you see there is replicated here I mean it is
the kind of same thinking that technology can be used to manage people and control people and keep people away
that you don't want on your territory key to Europe's efforts to keep people away are the Heron drones Israel uses to
surveil Gaza in 2020 Israel Aerospace industry signed a $50 million deal to
provide the drones to the eu's Border Force [Music]
frontex introducing Heron Maritime uas with a multi-sensor payload tailored to
the mission and with 24 hours of endurance known as a fix wi drone the Heron has a
range of up to 1,000 kilm from its base in Malta unlike a ship on the sea a
drone has no obligation to rescue vessels in distress instead frontex
passes the location of Migrant boats to the Libyan Coast Guard the boat capsized
during the interception the EU pays Libya to intercept migrants and in just the first 10 months of 2024 over 18,000
people were stopped from reaching Europe there's people in the water now yeah a lot a lot of people in the all of
[Music] them at least 28,000 people have died in
the Mediterranean in the last
decade the Greek government and the EU deny that they do push backs what do you
think their logic is in doing so they want to make the passage into the EU as
difficult and as violent as possible so that other people are dissuaded from coming because the more technology you
have the more the bigger your surveillance Dragnet is and people also know that and so they will take riskier
routes to try and avoid that surveillance in 2019 the Greek Coast Guard signed a deal with his ra company
Elbert for a full combat Suite enabling Patrol boats to control fleets of drones
and conduct surveillance far beyond the line of sight the Army acquired an Israeli made Heron drone for border duty
in 202 and the Coast Guard has had one since 2022 this footage shows the Coast Guard
illegally pushing a boat out of Greek Waters and into Turkish Waters known as a push back it's something Ry
experienced multiple times during his attempts to reach Grace they were like
hitting us with iron uh metal and they were like uh destroying the motor and as
us like to throw the oil the Benz of the motor that's to not be able to cross
after when they uh leave we remain contact with someone who
works at this high-tech camp and he doesn't want to be identified so we have to go out of town to interview him and
we're on the way there now The Whistleblower says that in 2020 Greece
adopted a policy to push back 100% of the boats so they started pushing every
boat back to Turkish Waters to Turkish Waters he said says after 2020 almost no one arrived at the
camp after March 2020 the numbers of SAS were ridiculous I think it was like 25
people in total but you cannot have zero arrivals for a whole year they prove
that they can control 100% the arrivals that changed in June 2023 when the Greek
Coast Guard tried to to Refugee boat the Adriana but instead capsized it killing
nearly 600 people suddenly Greece's border practices were under the
spotlight they changed their policy they stopped doing pushbacks he says that for seos the pause resulted in more people
in the camp and that's why from 300 people 400 people that were there within two maximum 3 months you had 4,000
people in the camp the reason behind that is because they stopped doing push backs we've looked at the official data
for arrivals and the numbers in the camp and they broadly support what he's saying
it makes sense that Greece and Israel are very close they've never been closer defense deals but it's more than that
both countries sell themselves as a model to how to keep unwanted
populations
out we just arrived in Delhi in India and it is predictably
overwhelming and we know already that India buys more arms off Israel than
anyone else but actually we've come to discover as a relationship more than
that as India overtakes China as the world's most populous country the
government is Keen to increase its high technology manufacturing and this has led to deep ties with
Israel they're on our way to meet some farmers in Punjab State not that far from Delhi and the reason we want to do
this is that we've discovered that they have been attacked Jil this year by
drone and there's a connection with how Israel treats Palestinians so we want to go and speak to them and understand what
happened this was the response of the authorities to seek Farmers peacefully protesting at the removal of price
protections for their crops 6 months later they're still camped out on the motorway in protest pushpin Des Singh
remembers how the police ched a tactic new to India dropping tear gas from
drones Dr
[Music]
this is one of the farmer's leaders he shows me the empty canisters some of which they said had come from the
Drone interrupted by The Monsoon we go to their makeshift headquarters that's the Drone drone
dropping tear gas
the police drones were supplied by drisha a company owned by the state of hayana to find out more we met the
former Chief Operating Officer of drisha also a former Wing commander in the Indian Air Force in 2018 hyana sent a
delegation to Israel politicians and police why did they go there and what
were they hoping to learn from a country that describes itself as a leader in homeland security that was a starting
point of of forming the Rishad that gives an idea to a state
that we should have our own setup Hay's chief minister led the delegation which
visited Israel Aerospace Industries where they were briefed about Innovations in Aerospace and
defense there is no doubt that Israel is far ahead as far as Technologies and
deep Technologies are concerned so lot of learning we have taken from as
at the time of the Indian visit Palestinians were peacefully protesting on the Gaza border it was here the
Israeli Army pioneered the practice of using drones to drop tear gas on
protesters the Israeli Army also shot and injured over 36,000 people and
killed 200 at the Indian Farmers protest the
drisha drones were initially being used for surveillance of the armers says the wing Commander since this being a dual
Ed technology so government thought we can use it to control the situation also but
obviously being a democratic Nation people doesn't like that but government sometime have to act tough that protest
was controlled at the cost of resentment by the people this is far from the only
exchange of ideas and weapons between India and Israel I promise
def in this Bollywood Style song Israel sings his allegiance to
India support while dancing around the products of Israeli missile manufacturer
[Music] Raphael to find out how this relationship came about I'm meeting
defense expert Rahul Betty hi hi lovely to meet you how are
you he says changed when India's previous main weapons supply of the Soviet Union collapsed in
1991 Israel sensed an opportunity India was a very ready and a very hungry
customer India is currently the largest purchaser of Israeli weapons buying
nearly 50% of total exports but it's more than a customer under the Mak India
policy the adani group and Israeli company Elbert are making a version of the Hermes 900 drone in hydrabad Israel
Aerospace Industries has set up a joint venture with Barett Electronics to maintain the II design medium range
surfac toar missiles used to cross India's armed forces and India has made
its space launch capacity available to Israel with a surveillance satellite to
surveil their borders in Gaza and in in in the Northern Territories they
launched another satellite soon after it was called reset rat uh with the X-ray radar supplied by
II Israel aircraft Industries which helps India uh monitor its line of
control with Pakistan I stand with isra
isra I love you is after October 7 there was a huge
increase in pro-israel Social media posts by right Hindu groups like
this the street level support enables more establishment Hindu nationalists to go even further especially around
India's disputed territory of Kashmir you need an Israel like solution to
Kashmir this is a dawn of a new era in the great friendship between India and
Israel I think it HS a flourishing of our partnership to bring prosperity and
peace for both our people at the offices of the independent newsite the wire are meeting its
founding editor how would you describe the shared values and relationship between Modi
Netanyahu Israel and India the official definition of Israel now is as a uh
Homeland for Jews and Jews are the only authentic Israelis Israel is a Jewish
State uh their counterparts in India Envision India as a Hindu State as a Hindu rashtra where where Hindus are the
only authentic uh Indians so I think that's very important glue that binds the uh
the two um governments at this stage after Independence in 1948 India
saw itself as a postcolonial leader and was one of the first to recognize pal
but that's been shifting since India has been a large customer of Israeli weapons and in 2024 India abstained on the
motion to end the occupation in Palestine it's really quite appalling the way in which the current Indian
government has reversed India's long-standing support for the people of Palestine and going back to before India was an independent
country far from criticizing Israel for its war on Gaza India's booming defense
industry is now exporting explosives missiles and drones to
Israel so when we came here we knew that India buys more arms from Isel anyone
else in the world but actually what we've discovered being here is that really there's a cultural Affinity
between India and Israel which is kind of about racial Supremacy both Nations
admire each other's racism but before India Israel had an
even murkier brush with racial Supremacy I've come to South Africa to see what
extent Israel helped support the apartheid regime here so we're in Cape Town South Africa
and first we're at the richest pous part of the city to see this incredible
wealth it's no accident that se Point remains one of the wealthiest areas in South Africa under apartheid only white
people were able to live here [Music]
instituted in 1948 the apartheid policy was a form of racial discrimination that
saw whites colors and blacks living under different legal and economic
systems non-white people were forcibly moved from the city and put into townships where many still live
today so we're just on the way to a Township on the outskirts of Cape Town where we're going to see the reality
what AP paride was like and we're going to meet up with the woman called Henrietta who was campaigning against it
for years there were townships on either side of this highway established during
a party to provide labor for the factories a bit further
down this is the outskirts of Langer the black
Township even now it's dominated by informal settlements built by people who
can't find any other housing [Music]
it's just so shocking and enraging on the other side of the
highway is bony hville a Township established for colored people which included those who were mixed race
indigenous and of Asian Heritage where I'm meeting Henrietta hello
hello wow what a beautiful garden
I was born in the apartate system so for me it was normal net Blancas whites only
Europeans only it was ingrained in you
that this is not for you these are for white people and something like a train
you could see the different standard we would sit on hard wooden benches in the train and they would have cushy uh um
seats how was a paride enforced exactly the police and the army during the '
880s they felt that they had to be present like they were stationed at our schools it was nothing for them to march
up and down our corridors or if they wasn't stationed there they were doing
the rounds on our streets so they were
[Music] everywhere apartheid was resisted from the beginning but by the 1980s the
African National Congress and other groups were organizing Mass protests
Henrietta was one of the [Music]
activists this is what's called Freedom Square yeah we would sit waiting on news
waiting on who's being arrested waiting on what is the next
plan we had a running battle here with the police for instance police would come there we will throw stones go
whatever then I would quickly run I would go and grab your grand child
in a frame and come back and watch the police as if I did nothing or pretend
that you were the mother yes right yes whatever you need to do right
yes despite these efforts Henryetta was arrested 14 times by the police who
routinely beat political organizers I had comrades of mine who was TI to
beds they would put things up there rectums males whose genitals banged into
filing drawers women been taken by their hair
thrown from one wall to the other to the [Music]
other internationally there was a growing movement of boycott divestment and sanctions against apartheid by the
1980s South Africa was economically and culturally isolated only a few countries
including the UK and US offered the regime any support to add to those
economic sanctions wouldn't help negotiations it would only make things worse but South Africa had another
secure partner throughout this period of isolation
Israel I'm meeting an investigator of economic crimes and human rights violations
we got a range of of documents here that come from different archives that tell different parts of the story I suppose
of of the South Africa Israel relationship kind of at the height of a partage this is from uh
1976 they really need stuff quite desperately so they've purchased uh six 130 mm ammunition systems from Israel
for 2.7 million round Israel in general was a huge suppli of ammunition to the
aparted state an additional option has been obtained for the purchase of 14,000
white phosphorus shells from the mid 1970s South Africa was at War trying to topple the leftwing government of the
newly independent Angola in 1976 South African prime minister John
voster visited Israel amid speculation the countries were working on an arms
deal if you look at the amount of weapons being bought around a billion US doar from the' 70s into the 80s by the
apartate state that's an incredible inflow of money into the Israeli economy
just when they need it and so just from a demand perspective that's an important relationship but then of course there's
the secondary benefit to both states which is the kind of co-creation of weapons technology so there's a a flow
of funds happening but there's also a flow of expertise that the apartate state is able to use Israeli Tech to
build their weapons technology Israel also supplied equipment used to repress the anti-apartheid movement including
water cannons made by an Israeli kabot but the relationship went deeper than just weapons this is from Milan to a
chief of general staff for the Israeli Defense Force and I think this is the telling line it is comforting to know
that South Africa does not stand alone in facing criticism from the International Community our respective
countries will have to withstand this in all its many manifestations and we keep up our determination and this is an
example but you see another places of the South Africans and the Israeli officials writing to each other with
that kind of mutual understanding of we're under siege we're under attack no one understands us um but you
do these two countries also work together on the development of their nuclear weapons South Africa supplied
Israel with uranium in the 1960s and they exchanged technology towards the
mid to the late 1980s when sou Africa have essentially developed uh nuclear weapons capacity we know that there are
high level discussion between the Israelis and the South Africans about missile technology and developing kind
of mid to long range uh missiles that could carry a nuclear load South Africa gave up its nuclear
weapons along with the paride in the 1990s but by then the Army and Security
Services were dependent on Israeli security Tech and have remained so in many sectors including with water
cannons it's perhaps not a surprise then that it's a post aarti government
that's mounting the most serious challenge to Israel's war in Gaza in
keeping with our obligation as a state party to the genocide convention our government has approached the
international court of justice to prevent the unfolding genocide in
Gaza what we've uncovered and detailed is the huge and close links between
Israel and apar South Africa for decades and I think it tells us a lot about how
Israel is willing to use its technology not only to survive but to support other
regimes that agree with its vision of racial [Music]
[Applause] [Music] Supremacy I've come back to Israel to try to understand where this idea comes
from this is one the regular protests calling on the government to bring the hostages home from Gaza there are
hundreds of thousands of people that way hundreds of thousands of people that way a sea of Israeli flags and there's a
stage over there where some family members of hostages are speaking and demanding the government makes a deal
with Hass to free the hostages I want to hear how people are thinking about the war on Gaza at the beginning I was like
I don't care from the other side yeah they brought them brought it on themselves yes but now when we know when
we understand we want the killing to stop and your solution to that is to is
it to end the war or is it to make a deal War to make a deal to end the war bring all of them back
home save lives of of them of our soldiers of the
people on the other side you mean Palestinians they also have innocent
people a lot of people in Israel even in the left Center left actually don't give
a damn about Palestinian life in Gaza in the West Bank and this is actually this is part of the
problem because people here are fighting for democracy but actually they're fighting for democracy for the Jew for
the Israeli not even for the Palestinian who live in Israel to find out why this is a meeting
outspoken journalist Gideon Levy he puts it down to what he calls the Israeli
mindset most of the Israelis including the secular ones if you scratch Under
the Skin you will see they truly believe that we are the chosen people and being
the chosen people means that we have privileges it means that nobody can tell
us what to do and it's becoming clear that Israel sees what happened on October the 7th as justification not
only to destroy Gaza but to resettle it the only way to prevent that from happening again is to return the entire
strip to Jewish sovereignty to be an integral part of the land which it was
always meant to be that's the the only real way to bring peace no one's really sanctioning Israel
for arms or really anything how does it get away with it Israel developed a very
sophisticated strategy namely any criticism about Israel is anti-Semitism
I don't think there is one state in the world who has the same freedom to do
whatever it wants without legal limits without moral limits without any
International limits I don't think there one state in the world that not only
ignores endless resolution of the International Community but is also the
darling of the West on This Global Journey one of the
things that really struck me is how ubiquitous Israeli surveillance Tech is
border Tech but not just equipment actually it's ideology because in some ways what I'm investigating is not just
the Israeli arms industry which is huge and growing it's also an idea this idea
that Israel is selling a model a way to separate and control unwanted
populations minorities whether it's Muslims or others so much of the world increasingly
is dealing with the climate crisis growing numbers of refuges well over 100
million and as much of the world moves to the right and the far right they see
this country where I am now as that model and in fact despite what Israel is doing right here in Gaza they see that
in fact as a reason to to copy Israel even more because there Israel is already selling and promoting and
marketing the repressive Tech and weapons that they're using in the Mass Slaughter in Gaza behind me
[Music]
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