My new book, The Palestine Laboratory, has been written about in the Lebanese daily in Arabic An-Nahar (and what follows is the English version via Google Translate). The article is by Jihad Al-Zein:
No smartphone anymore
Israel is first in the world, not America or China, in smart phone monitoring programs
It can be said that there is no “smart” phone after the progress made and is being made by companies producing mobile phone monitoring programs in Israel, which topped the list of countries exporting monitoring programs in the world. I came away with this impression after reading Anthony Loewenstein’s book published this year, 2023, especially the sixth chapter of it.
In a book with a high level of field research and with specialists, the independent Australian journalist and writer with contributions to international newspapers, Anthony Loewenstein, presents information, some of which is unprecedented and based on investigative investigations, rather investigative investigations from within the high-technology sector inside and outside Israel in many countries about the tremendous progress achieved by companies. The Israeli private sector, especially NSO and its branch PEGASUS, is promoting its exports of cyber spyware, whose clients go beyond simply monitoring the activities of political and security opponents to the areas of commercial, cultural, and even social and personal espionage, and for mafias in Latin America, the most important of which is the Mexican mafia.
The book is ultimately obsessed with Israeli racist behavior towards the Palestinians, starting with its title, “The Palestine Laboratory.” It does not separate the advanced position of private Israeli companies in the world of eavesdropping and surveillance from the “opportunity” provided by the occupation of Palestine and the colonization of Palestinians to develop tools for individual and public surveillance, but it does in some of its chapters (sixth and seventh ) It turns into an indispensable reference for the “surveillance industry” and the digital wars at the international level, both in production and consumption.
According to the book, Israeli companies have sold software to 130 countries so far, including China, Russia, India, and even some American companies.
I noticed after reading the book that the United States of America, despite its knowledge of Israel’s superiority over China in surveillance technology, focuses only on China in its propaganda, accusing it of “exporting totalitarianism,” and practically ignores the roles of Israeli companies in this context, contenting itself with declaring its annoyance only with Israel’s mere sale of technology to China. Spying, as if selling to many people in the world other than China is acceptable to them. This is an example of how the policy of the superpower and its alliances behaves by focusing on one level and ignoring another level.
Based on the opinion of an Israeli demographer, Arnon Sofer, the writer estimates that the number of Jews between the sea and the river, that is, in Israel and the West Bank, does not exceed 47 percent of the total population. He concludes, due to the population deficit, despite plans to settle hundreds of thousands of Jews and “evangelical Christians” in the West Bank, that Israel in the future must choose between Zionism and liberalism in order not to turn into a completely colonial state. I do not share this opinion because it is impossible, as all the transformations of the Hebrew entity since 1948 have shown, to abandon the Zionist expansionist doctrine, even assuming that the realities of the contemporary world, pressure from the West, and commitments to expanding Israel’s relations with the Arab environment will impose a degree of rationalization or concessions in its internal choices.
After reading the sixth chapter of this book, I feel that I have entered into a new relationship with my mobile phone, as well as with my use of social media on the iPad, specifically what I limit my interest in, which are “Facebook” and “Twitter” previously, which became called X.
I have formed an absolute conviction that no phone is impenetrable, not only from Israel but also from all kinds of eavesdropping forces in the world. Forget all the primitive methods that we thought would protect the mobile phone, such as turning it off or withdrawing its card! The only solution is reservation and secrecy. Even “drafts” from now on before being sent by e-mail or any other means are no longer safe if any individual computer can transfer its content at any moment.
We can imagine if the market of one country could expand to export surveillance programs to 130 countries in the world, how easy these programs would become to obtain. What I conclude here has become an axiom for any intelligence agency for years.
Let the “eavesdropping powers” go to hell in their war against each other and against us.