1. Managing the occupation of the Palestinians became a brand for Israel. Starting in the sixties it became a shop for counter-terrorism technology and weapons. Morality played no factor in this business, says Antony Loewenstein

2. Other nations wanted to know: how do you control populations and get away with it like you? Israel armed the forces that committed genocide in Guatemala in the 80s.

3. During the cold war Israel became the wingman of the US whenever it backed very questionable regimes like Pinochet in Chile and delivered more weapons than the US.

4. Mandela said it South-Africa would not forget how Israel had armed the oppressors under Apartheid there

5. A huge advantage for Israel as a weapons dealer is that it can test new weapons on the Palestinians. This then becomes a fantastic selling point. Its weapons are battle-tested. Spyware, drones, AI enabled warfare, robot dogs, data gathering techniques… The way Israel controls Hebron stands out as an experiment in population managing (I have been to Hebron and can confirm how insane the situation is there).

6. New weapons often appear first in Palestinian territories and then start appearing around the world

7. October 7th was extra mortifying for Israel, because it’s extremely bad marketing for their arms dealing business

8. Unfortunately Israel is now testing a whole range of weapons in Gaza and on the border with Lebanon and Syria and this will allow it to sell weaponry to the west

9. Hollywood and the Pentagon have long teamed up to create propaganda movies for the military, such as Top Gun. The US has a recruitment problem, because of faillures in Iraq and Afghanistan and needs more of these movies.

10. Antony Loewenstein says what Israel is doing in Gaza could certainly be genocide, but it’s definitely ‘politicide’, meaning its aim is to destroy the political power of the Palestinians

11. A lot of nations are looking at what Israel is doing with envy and want a piece of the action. They want to know how they can get away with mass destruction.

12. Arab regimes are scared that their own populations will rise up against them and they invest in Israeli tech to manage their own populations. They don’t care about the Palestinians, they are only interested in suppressing the anger their Arab citizens feel about what is happening to the Palestinians. It’s unlikely these countries will cut ties with Israel. They want Israeli spyware

13. Israeli Jews have been radicalized for decades and the West has willfully ignored this trend

14. The West essentially doesn’t care about Palestinian deaths

15. What Israel is doing is making the whole world less safe

16. Israelis wanted to escape the ghettos of the past and have now succesfully locked themselves up in a ghetto of their own making

17. Antisemitism hasn’t stopped Israel from selling weapons. It has sold weapons to countries like Argentina that offered shelter to many Nazi criminals

18. Israel supports some of the most extreme right wing parties in Europe, like Vox in Spain or Vlaams Belang in Belgium. They are partnering with people who often celebrate a past rife with antisemitism, but are supporting the occupation of the Palestinians. Islamophobia unites them.

19. India and Israel have a lot of common ground since both want to have an ethnoreligious state

20. Loewenstein, a secular Jew, can’t imagine any other country as radicalized as Israel. Many polls indicate Israelis want even more destruction in Gaza. There is already nothing left in Gaza, so for the first time ever Loewenstein meets Palestinians who are considering leaving, which is exactly what Israelis want.

21. Israelis see themselves as the eternal victim and this leads to a very dark places. Israelis who want a different course say they cannot achieve that without external pressure.