By Antony Loewenstein

The Israeli defence industry inspires nations across the globe, many of which view themselves as under threat from external enemies.

The Taiwanese foreign minister, Joseph Wu, recently told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that: “Every aspect of the Israeli fighting capability is amazing to the Taiwanese people and the Taiwanese government.”

Wu explained that he appreciated how Israel protected its own country because, “basically, we [Taiwan] have barely started. The fighting experiences of Israel are something we’re not quite sure about ourselves. We haven’t had any war in the last four or five decades, but Israel has that kind of experience”.

• READ MORE: Antony Loewenstein: Palestine a testing ground for war tech
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Wu also expressed interest in Israeli weapons, suggesting his country had considered their usefulness in any potential war with China.

“Israel has the Iron Dome,” he said, referring to Israel’s defence system against short-range missiles. “We should look at some of the technology that has been used by the Israelis in its defence. I’m not sure whether we can copy it, but I think we can look at it and learn from it.”

It isn’t just Taiwan imagining itself as akin to Israel. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in April 2022 that his vision for his nation was to mimic “the Jewish state“.

Two months after Russia’s illegal invasion of its territory, Zelensky, who is a long-time supporter of Israel, argued that “our people will be our great army. We cannot talk about ‘Switzerland of the future’ — probably, our state will be able to be like this a long time after. But we will definitely become a ‘big Israel’ with its own face.”

Zelensky went on to explain that what he meant was the need in the future to have “representatives of the armed forces or the national guard in all institutions, supermarkets, cinemas; there will be people with weapons.”

The Palestine laboratory
This admiration for Israel is both unsurprising and disturbing. The praise for Israel almost always completely ignores its occupation of Palestinian territory — one of the longest in modern times — and the ways in which this colonial project is implemented.

When Taiwan, Ukraine or any other country looks to Israel for innovation, it’s a highly selective gaze which completely disappears the more than five million Palestinians under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.

The appeal of the Palestine laboratory is endless. I’ve spent the last years researching this concept and its execution in Palestine and across the globe.

My new book, The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World, uncovers how Israel has used the occupied Palestinians as the ultimate guineapigs when developing tools of repression, from drones to spyware and facial recognition to biometric data, while maintaining an “enemy” population, the Palestinians, under control for more than half a century.

Israel has sold defence equipment to at least 130 countries and is now the 10th biggest arms exporter in the world. The US is still the dominant player in this space, accounting for 40 percent of the global weapons industry.

Washington used its failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as a testing ground for new weapons. During the current Russian invasion of Ukraine, the war has been a vital “beta test” for new weapons and sophisticated forms of surveillance and killing.

But Israel has a ready-made population of occupied Palestinians over which it has complete control. For more than five decades, Israeli intelligence authorities have built an NSA-level system of surveillance across the entire occupied Palestinian territories.

Nowhere is completely immune from listening, watching or following.

In the last decade, the most infamous example of Israeli repression tech is Pegasus, the phone hacking tool developed by the company NSO Group. Used and abused by dozens of nations around the world, Mexico is its most prolific adherent.

I spoke to dissidents, lawyers and human rights activists in Togo, Mexico, India and beyond whose lives were upended by this invasive, mostly silent tool.

Israeli state and spyware
However, missing from so much of the western media coverage, including outrage against NSO Group and its founders who were Israeli army veterans, is acknowledgement of the close ties between the firm and the Israeli state.

NSO is a private corporation in name only and is in fact an arm of Israel’s diplomacy, used by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Mossad to attract new friends in the international arena. Despite being blacklisted by the Biden administration in November 2021, the company still hopes to continue trading.

My research, along with that of other reporters, has shown a clear connection between the sale of Israeli cyberweapons and Israel’s attempts to neuter any potential backlash to its illegal occupation.

From Rwanda to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to India, Israeli spyware and surveillance tech are used by countless democracies and dictatorships alike.

Beyond Pegasus, many other similar tools have been deployed by newer and lesser-known Israeli companies, though they’re just as destructive. The problem isn’t just Pegasus — it could close down tomorrow and the privacy-busting technology would transfer to any number of competitors — but the unquenchable desire by governments, police forces and intelligence services for the relatively inexpensive Israeli tech that powers it.

India is even looking for alternatives to NSO Group with a less controversial history.

The Palestine laboratory is so successful because nobody wants to seriously regulate the fruits of its labours.

Ideological alignment
The extent of Israeli collusion with 20th and 21st century repression is overwhelming.

Perhaps the most revealing was the deep relationship between apartheid South Africa and Israel. It wasn’t just about arms trading, but an ideological alignment between two states that truly believed that they were fighting for their very existence.

In 1976, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin invited South African Prime Minister John Vorster, a Nazi sympathiser during the Second World War, to visit Israel. His tour included a stop at Yad Vashem, the country’s Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.

When Vorster arrived in Israel, he was feted by Rabin at a state dinner. Rabin toasted “the ideals shared by Israel and South Africa: the hopes for justice and peaceful coexistence”. Both nations faced “foreign-inspired instability and recklessness”.

Israel and South Africa viewed themselves as under attack by foreign bodies committed to their destruction. A short time after Vorster’s visit, the South African government yearbook explained that both states were facing the same issue: “Israel and South Africa have one thing above all else in common: they are both situated in a predominantly hostile world inhabited by dark peoples.”

A love of ethnonationalism still fuels Israel today, along with a desire to export it. Some arms deals with nations, such as Bangladesh or the Philippines, are purely on military grounds and to make money.

Israel places barely any restrictions on what it sells, which pleases leaders who don’t want meddling in their actions. Pro-Israel lobbyists are increasingly working for repressive states, such as Bangladesh, to promote their supposed usefulness to the West.

Israel and the global far right
But Israel’s affinity with Hungary, India and the global far right, a group that traditionally hates Jews, speaks volumes about the inspirational nature of the modern Israeli state. As Haaretz journalist Noa Landau recently wrote, while explaining why Netanyahu’s government defended the latest arguably antisemitic comments by Elon Musk about George Soros:

“The government’s mobilisation in the service of stoking antisemitism is not surprising. It is the fruit of a long and consistent process in which the Netanyahu government has been growing closer to extreme right-wing elements around the world, at the expense of Jewish communities it purports to represent.”

It’s worth pausing for a moment to reflect on this undeniable reality. Israel, which claims to represent global Jewry, is encouraging an alignment between itself and a hyper-nationalist, bigoted and racist populism, regardless of the long-term consequences for the safety and security of Jews around the world.

Israel has thrived as an ethnonationalist state for so long because the vast bulk of the world grants it impunity. European nations have been key supporters of Israel, willing to overlook its occupation and abuse of Palestinians.

According to newly declassified documents from the files of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, between 1967 and 1990 it’s clear that West Germany was becoming more critical of Israel’s settlement project in Palestine, but the main concern was protecting its own financial interests in the region if a regional war broke out.

In a document written on 16 February 1975 to the deputy director of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Western Europe, Nissim Yaish, before Israel’s Foreign Minister Yigal Allon’s visit to West Germany, Yaish explained the thinking in his country’s diplomatic bureaucracy:

“There is unanimity that this time such a war will have a far-reaching impact on all its affairs internally and externally and that it could wreak a Holocaust on the German economy. Based on this attitude, West Germany is interested in rapid progress toward a [peace] agreement.”

Western silence
But there has rarely been any serious interest in pursuing peace, or holding Israel to account for its blatantly illegal actions, because the economic imperative is too strong. Even today, when another Nakba against Palestinians is becoming more possible to imagine, there’s largely silence from Western elites.

Germany has banned public recognition of the 1948 Nakba and criminalised any solidarity with the Palestinian people. Germany is also keen to buy an Israeli missile defence system, confirming its priorities.

This is why Israeli apartheid and the Palestine laboratory are so hard to stop; countless nations want a piece of Israeli repression tech to surveil their own unwanted populations or election meddling support in Latin America or Africa.

Without a push for accountability, economic boycotts and regulation or banning Israeli spyware — the EU is flirting with the idea — Israel can feel comfortable that its position as a global leader in offensive weapons is secure.

This article was first published in the Middle East Eye.

A mad race to produce a vaccine against covid-19 has begun with the world’s superpowers leading the pack. At stake are millions of lives and billions of dollars.

Among the frontrunners is the United States with its futuristic-sounding Operation Warp Speed. Europe and China also have their own leading candidate vaccines.

As the race heats up, cheering and waiting on the sidelines for the crumbs are the less developed Asian, Asia-Pacific, African and South American countries, where most of the clinical trials for the vaccines will be or are being conducted already.

READ MORE: PNG bans covid ‘vaccination – orders probe into Chinese worker claim

Normally, it takes at least four years to develop a vaccine before it is marketed. But in the covid-19 age, health experts are optimistically predicting a vaccine in one year or less.

There is a sense of urgency and we hope for an early breakthrough.

Meanwhile, at the head of the line waiting for the vaccine, expected to be ready by the end of the year, are the populations of the Western countries. They are, of course, the priority for their governments which funded the research in the first place.

Developing world as trial labs
Poor Asian countries and the rest of the developing world, unfortunately, have to wait at the end of the line. That is why some of them have agreed to be guinea pigs for the vaccine trials in the hope that they will be given preference when the vaccines are rolled out for use. Beggars cannot be choosers.

Mid-August President Rodrigo Duterte committed the Philippines to participate in the phase 3 trials of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine. Joining the Philippines in the clinical trials are Saudi Arabia and the UAE. However, the Philippine President’s rash acceptance of the Russian offer of clinical trials in the country might be a catastrophic mistake because the Russian project is suspect.

Indonesia has started a late-stage human trial of a Chinese-made covid-19 vaccine that will involve as many as 1,620 patients. No less than the Indonesian President Joko Widodo launched the trial at a ceremony in Bandung, West Java, in mid-August.

The Indonesian decision to be a clinical trial partner with China might be a better bet because China is a leader in the race to produce a vaccine.

The vaccine candidate produced by Sinovac Biotech is among the few in the world to enter phase 3 clinical trials, or large-scale testing on humans — the last step before regulatory approval. CoronaVac, is undergoing a late-stage trial in Brazil and Sinovac expects to test it in Bangladesh also.

Asia is the favourite destination of drug manufacturers for clinical trials for several reasons. Among them are medical expertise in specific therapeutic areas, availability of vast patient pools, excellent laboratories and infrastructure, comparable quality and lower costs. Another factor is comparable incidence and prevalence of Western diseases. (1)

There is likewise worldwide data acceptability. Data from clinical trials in Asia are routinely accepted by the regulatory agencies — US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA). Also, the costs in Asia for procedures, diagnostic tests and visits are generally 30-40 per cent lower than in the US and Europe.

Science must trump politics
As the race heats up, a word of caution is in order. Scientists must not sacrifice scientific integrity for politics but should follow the strict protocols for scientific research and production. Governments must put science over politics in the race to the vaccine.

“Scientists must not sacrifice scientific integrity for politics but should follow the strict protocols for scientific research and production.”

– Crispin Maslog

Safety and effectiveness are crucial to vaccine development. A blunder in the clinical trials caused by rushing procedures, for example, could lead to deaths that will set back research and development by many years.

As it is, there is already “vaccine hesitancy” among the public everywhere, especially among the uninformed. Polls show that US citizens have become less confident about the safety of vaccines.

Polling by the opinion and data company YouGov in May found 55 percent of US adults saying that they would get a covid-19 vaccine. By the end of July, that figure had dropped to 41 per cent — well below the 60—70 percent experts think will be needed to achieve “herd immunity”.

There is also substantial scepticism against vaccines in other countries, according to a recent study by the Wellcome Trust. In France, less than half of people believe vaccines are safe. In Ukraine — the most sceptical country in the world — the figure is just 29 percent.

Let us not feed this vaccine hesitancy with instances of failure.

Who gets the vaccines first?
As the superpowers rush to the finish line, the rhetorical question arises: who gets the vaccines first? Rhetorical because, unless an international body intervenes, we know the poor will get it last.

Some Asian and African countries have negotiated agreements, but not most of Asia and Africa. And even for those who negotiated for agreements, there are no guarantees, and whether the amount of doses that will be obtained will be enough to cover the majority of the population.

Unless governments subsidise the vaccines partially or fully they will be unaffordable for the poor. Early reports say the Chinese vaccines will cost US$145 per shot in the open market, while those from Oxford, UK, will only cost US$4-10 because they will be subsidised.

Some countries plan to provide free vaccinations, and even pay people to be vaccinated to ensure herd immunity, about 70-90 per cent of the population.

There is hope on the horizon via COVAX, a consortium of 172 economies now being organised and “working with vaccine manufacturers to provide countries worldwide equitable access to safe and effective vaccines, once they are licensed and approved”. (2)

“It is the only global initiative that is working with governments and manufacturers to ensure that covid-19 vaccines are available worldwide to both higher-income and lower-income countries,” say the organisers in a news release. (2)

Richard Hatchett, CEO of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, one of the organisers of COVAX, says: “In the scramble for a vaccine, countries can… come together to participate in an initiative which is built on enlightened self-interest and also equity, leaving no country behind.” (2)

This is a welcome development and we hope it succeeds. May the best developed vaccines and humanity win. No shortcuts, please.

Dr Crispin C. Maslog is a former journalist with Agence France-Presse, is an environmental activist and former science journalism professor at Silliman University and the University of the Philippines Los Baños, Philippines. He is a founding member and now chair of the board, Asian Media Information and Communication Centre, Manila. This article was produced by SciDev.Net’s Asia & Pacific desk and is republished by the Pacific Media Centre with the permission of the author.

References
1. Asia: Preferred Destination for Clinical Trials: A Frost and Sullivan White Paper.
2. COVAX News Release Geneva/Oslo, 24 August 2020