The Palestine Laboratory (2025) Movie Script

(lively music)
The Farnborough Air Show
one of the largest in the world.
Global weapons giants
like BAE Systems,
Lockheed Martin and Airbus
come to show off their latest
military hardware.
Billions of dollars of civil
and military deals are done here
every year.
Standing shoulder to shoulder
with these global
military giants are Israel's
top weapons manufacturers
like Israel Aerospace
Industries
and missile makers Rafael.
In the main hall,
Israel's largest
private weapons
company, Elbit has a huge stand.
They need it to showcase
their world class
drones and missiles.
Despite its tiny population,
Israel is the world's
ninth largest weapons producer.
(missile sounds from TV)
This high budget
promo is for the trophy
anti-missile system
made by Israeli company Rafael.
It's the kind of advanced
technology Israel specializes in
and makes the
Israeli Merkva tank
one of the best on the market.
Automatically activated
only when enemy fire
is sure to hit the vehicle.
Both tank and
anti-missile system sell
around the world to
undisclosed clients.
Overall, Israel exports
more than $13 billion
of weapons and
surveillance equipment a year.
And with adverts
like this for the
Spike Firefly,
Israeli company's hint
that their products may have
been battle tested in Palestine.
So how does being
a major arms supplier
impact Israel's
diplomatic position?
Could it give the country
a measure of impunity when it
wants to undertake its own wars?
(explosion)
(atmospheric music)
I've just got a stash of books
from my publisher today.
My book and other
books are mostly related
to Palestine and,
guerrilla journalism.
Just some light reading.
I'm about to do an event,
a Q&A about my book,
The Palestine Laboratory.
The book's been
quite controversial.
It's a look at how
the occupation
of Palestine allows Israel
to test weapons, which are
then sold around the world.
I wanted to do a book, really,
not just about the whole concept
of the arms industry,
which is an
interesting subject,
but can be a bit dry.
But what Israel is
testing and selling
and promoting is not
just weaponry, it's an idea.
It's a concept.
And it's a very appealing
concept to many other countries.
Israel sells the idea
of getting away with it.
To find out how tiny Israel
has managed to develop this huge
military and
surveillance machine.
I'm heading back to
Israel and Palestine.
It's not really clear
if I'm going to get in.
I haven't been
there for a few years.
Wish me luck.
(tense music)
Although I'm Jewish, I'm
not a citizen of Israel.
And their immigration rules say
they can refuse entry to critics
of the country or those
who have called for boycotts.
So they have multiple reasons
for turning me away.
My arrival was
surprisingly smooth,
so I'm heading straight
to East Jerusalem.
Israel has been occupying
the West Bank since 1967, and
has developed a unique system
of controlling the
Palestinian population,
from checkpoints
in the separation wall
to increasingly innovative
methods of surveillance.
These walls are not
just walls, they can listen,
and they are listening
to probably us right now
I suspect.
It's in these population
management technologies
that Israel is a global leader.
So I want to
see how they first
use it to control Palestinians
before being sold
around the world.
I'm on my way to meet Osama,
a businessman in East Jerusalem,
to find out how all this impacts
ordinary Palestinians.
You can see my
office from this camera...
inside.
So the cameras are both
looking into Damascus Gate,
but also out.
- In and out.
So I'm standing on a balcony,
literally overlooking
Damascus Gate.
It's Osama's office, his
insurance office and all around
behind me over there,
there's multiple
surveillance towers.
Right behind me.
there's a camera watching me.
So I'm going to watch it.
Osama wants to show
me the very physical reality
of the occupation.
The restrictions
on the movement of Palestinians,
His daily commute from
the West Bank to Jerusalem
is through the
Columbia checkpoint.
Osama, how do you feel
when you cross
Columbia checkpoint?
You're crying.
I think 24 hours
about my, my daughter.
My son.
If he need me.
I am here, in this traffic.
I need 3 or 4 hours to go to
help my son.
- I do.
I can understand
why this would make you nervous.
You can see soldier here.
Any mistake,
you lost your life.
And that's happened
many times.
Yes.
The soldiers have the power to
detain people like
Osama for hours.
Question them and place them in
administrative
detention without charge.
or trial.
It's almost like you have
to ask permission
to go into Jerusalem
to get back to your own city.
But this physical infrastructure
is just the beginning.
Israel has a vision
of a seamless
future where
technology minimizes
the interactions between
Palestinians and
the Israeli army.
Israel says it's safer,
but it's quite dystopic.
Mona, hi!
- Hi.
I'm meeting
Palestinian digital rights
campaigner Mona
Shtaya to find out more.
Explain the growing trend within
Israeli thinking of a so-called
frictionless occupation.
Well, the whole
automation aims to
eliminate the direct interaction
between the Israeli
as occupying force
and Palestinians
as occupied people.
And to make the main interaction
between Palestinians
and the technology.
So it could create this idea
that our problem is not with the
occupier, but rather
with the technology.
Hebron is the testing ground
for many of the supposedly
frictionless technologies.
The city is split into
two zones, each one
with a population
of nearly 200,000.
In H2, 35,000 Palestinians live
under the gaze
of the 750 settlers,
and 800 soldiers who have taken
over the center of the city.
Palestinians living in H2 face
the heaviest surveillance
in the West Bank, and the
strictest travel restrictions.
(pulsing tense score)
Under the so-called
frictionless occupation
these cameras are linked to
artificial intelligence systems,
watching for what Israel deems
threatening behavior.
There's someone who watches you,
who knows what you are doing,
but you don't necessarily know
who's watching you.
Palestinians
needs to think about
behaving at our
best all the time.
Sometimes you
might be angry from
something that
happens with your family,
in your home,
or at your work, and
then you might look like angry.
And with a predictive policing,
you never know
when you would
be identified as a
security threat by the Israelis.
So you need to
fake your emotions.
If the frictionless occupation
can't get a fixed
camera on you, it can
send a flying one.
This was recorded just a few
miles south of Hebron.
(drone buzzing)
Issa Amro is a human
rights activist living in H2.
This is a military post full
of cameras and surveillance.
And they watch us for sure now.
So let's say hi.
I usually say hi to them.
We are in the main street
in Tel Rumeida
Palestinians are not allowed
to drive here.
Palestinian shops are closed
by military orders
and the streets here is full of
Israeli military surveillance.
Let's see.
The Palestinian
kids in the window,
they are caged in the house.
Look, they
put fences in their
windows to be
protected from the settler
and army violence. Look!
Surveillance
for the military is up there.
And this is the surveillance
of the Israeli settlers.
So imagine that,
the Israeli settlers
they have their
own systems here.
These checkpoints are
where the latest
frictionless
technology is tested,
including this AI enabled
remotely controlled gun,
which fires stun grenades, tear
gas and sponge chip bullets.
It's made by Israeli company
Smart Shooter.
These checkpoints also boast
Israel's most comprehensive data
gathering tool,
Wolf Pack.
From 10 to 15 cameras
are on the checkpoint.
This is where they use
Red Wolf and Blue Wolf.
The Israeli military recently
invented two systems
Red wolf and Blue Wolf.
Blue wolf in the
soldiers phones.
They take your photo, then
they know all details about you.
Where you've been,
where you go,
what you like, what
you don't like,
your private things.
Then there is another system.
The Red Wolf is set up in the
checkpoints and
in the control rooms,
and it's profiling Palestinians
according to their
political stance.
When the soldiers scan a
Palestinian's face,
they get a traffic
light style indication
of their supposed risk.
White, for Palestinians
who are not doing
anything about the occupation.
You have yellow
and you have orange.
For example, I'm a human
rights defender, I am red.
It means check him,
make his life harder.
He's a suspect.
So the frictionless technology
actually enables a lot more
friction for some people.
They use us as simulation
objects for their technology.
Israeli security solution
companies, they install
cameras, sensors,
drones and they
tested it on us
without our consent.
Do they sell it?
Do they use it for
other research?
What kind of data
do they collect?
It seems to be the often secret
partnerships
between the military and private
sector that have helped Israeli
companies become
world leaders in their fields.
In 2019, a report revealed
that Israeli company
Anyvision had installed
turnstiles in the West Bank
and was collecting movement
and biometric data
from the tens of thousands of
Palestinians forced to use them.
Early investor
Microsoft pulled their
funding after this was revealed.
The company changed its name
to Oosto and says it works in 43
countries,
with clients including
casinos, airports and schools.
(tense music)
Another Israeli company,
Viisights,
make behavioral
recognition systems
that watch CCTV
feeds for any threats.
The company actually created
the ability to take a real time
video stream and understand
what's going on
within the stream.
The company is supported
by the Israeli military.
It's marketed for use in cities,
prisons and refugee camps
around the world.
We're in Abu Dis in East
Jerusalem and I'm standing
next to a old but now derelict
hotel owned by Palestinians.
And during the second intifada,
in the early 2000s,
the separation wall
was built, and it's kind of
surrounded now on all sides.
No one can access it.
The owners can't use it.
The guests are not coming.
But what Israel has
done is on the top,
they've installed
surveillance cameras.
The location is
patrolled by police
and private security
24 hours a day.
Just a minute ago we
saw them move,
probably to watch us.
Minutes later,
four young Israeli police
officers with machine
guns approached us.
So what are you doing here?
Were just filming a
documentary about
the situation here.
(van horn)
This formerly Palestinian
run hotel,
taken over
by the military
and turned into a
surveillance post,
could be seen as a
microcosm of the occupation.
But what is visible is just
part of the overall picture
of how the occupation
surveils Palestinians.
First, there is the physical
infrastructure of
walls and checkpoints.
The checkpoints record movement
data and biometric information.
Then they have CCTV cameras,
which are monitored by AI
for perceived threats
of violence, and
that in turn is hooked
up to databases
like Red Wolf, which track
everyone's political profile.
But there's also a
more fundamental
level of surveillance,
which is that
most of the phone and internet
system is routed through Israel.
Israel is
controlling the
ICT infrastructure in
the occupied
Palestinian territory,
which means that
Palestinians are not able
to have safe access
to the internet.
With control of basic
communications infrastructure
the Israelis know every phone
number and can tap any call.
Israeli intelligence
also have teams
monitoring all the
social media platforms.
Many Palestinians,
basically they don't
share their political
opinion online
because they would
be afraid of being
interrogated or
arrested by the Israelis.
I find it remarkable
that sometimes blanket
CCTV coverage, analyzed
by artificial intelligence
and backed up by
biometric movement
tracking just isn't
enough surveillance.
I'm off to meet a man
who once presented
such a threat to the authorities
that they deployed the world's
most invasive spyware on him.
Anthony, hi,
and lovely to meet you.
Ubai Al Aboudi didnt
look threatening to me.
He runs the Bisan Center,
which
campaigns for the
rights of Palestinians.
Do you have any idea
why you were targeted?
I think it has to do
with the targeting
of any kind of
Palestinian civil society.
Israel sees us as, part of,
establishing that there
is a Palestinian people.
How did you hear that
your phone had been
infected by Pegasus
and why do you
think that happened?
You're working with
Palestinian human
rights organization Al Haq,
right?
I was contacted by
Al Haq in late 2021.
They found that, one of their
employees had
Pegasus on his phone.
I had my device checked, and he
told me that my
phone was infected
by Pegasus spyware.
A couple of days later,
the Israeli,
Minister of Defense,
Benny Gantz, designated
six Palestinian civil society
organizations as
terrorist organizations,
- Including Bisan?
- Including Bisan.
Pegasus is unique
spyware that can
access every
aspect of your phone.
It can take 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.
Is there anything you feel like
you can do,
or do you ultimately
feel like there's
not much you can practically do?
It was explained to
me by a citizen lab
that once a state actor
goes after any citizen
or small organization, there's
basically very
little they can do.
Pegasus is produced by Israeli
surveillance company NSO,
and is marketed
to government agencies as a tool
for fighting crime
and terrorism.
In 2021,
an investigation revealed
that around 50,000
people worldwide
potentially had it on their
phones,
and a large number of them
were journalists,
lawyers, dissidents
and human rights defenders.
One, two, three, four
we don't want your cyber war.
It's no accident that this
spyware was developed in Israel.
Much of NSO staff is
drawn from the Army's
Cyber Intelligence Unit 8200.
(brooding music)
This unit is tasked with
gathering intelligence
from electronic communications
and conducting cyber warfare
against Palestinians.
It's known for being highly
innovative and spinning out
successful cyber security
companies like NSO.
To find out how 8200 has helped
Israel become a global leader
in surveillance technology,
I'm meeting Yaakov Peri, a
former director of the Shin Bet
intelligence agency.
This one here was you, dressed
as an Arab in Gaza.
When do you think that was?
- 88.
- 1988.
Can you say what
you were doing?
No.
Okay.
That's 68. Yeah.
- Okay.
- Nablus.
Okay. So the first year
after, six day occupation.
Yeah?
- Yeah.
Here we have all kinds of ways
to smuggle.
What are these, hangers?
- Hangers.
- With explosives?
- Yeah.
How has Israel sold itself,
really for decades now,
as a global leader in
defense and homeland
security equipment?
You cannot defend yourself
only by a human...
sources. You have
to use also a technology
in order to be on the,
beating side,
Israel had to be very,
very, very
creative to find solutions that,
you cannot buy in the,
market or the,
around the world.
One of the
innovators is unit 8200.
It's been around for many years.
Talk a little bit about,
based on
your experience,
what that unit is.
We have developed
a unique technology
how to, where to tape
whom will be taped
and the ability to
reach, to top secret,
say... that usually are hidden.
We say that if a ruler
wants to do something,
it's easy in his mind,
but he cannot do it alone.
He has to share
it with at least one,
two, three or four people
who are close to him.
And we have
developed technologies
that can reach the right people
that we will tape and know.
So 8200 became a
one of the secrets
of the Israeli intelligence.
I'm not asking you
to reveal top
secret intelligence,
but give a sense,
what are the kind of
methods that Israel
was using to try to
get that intelligence?
If you want to follow a certain
terrorist or a set, the cell,
you have to be equipped
with a surveillance technology
that gives you the advantage to
watch him without
him sensing you.
You have to develop ammunition,
which you can use in a remote
control for a long distance.
So sometimes your headquarters
is in Tel Aviv,
and the terrorist
cell is in Gaza Strip.
And you want to,
kill somebody.
You have to be very,
very accurate.
You have to be with a...
The best technology
that you will not be accused,
by killing innocent people.
We are getting hit!
Send the Lanius!
Israel is a leader in remote
controlled bombing
with small drones
like the controversial Lanius.
Elbit Systems presents,
Lanius...
search and attack in one
new, innovative,
autonomous, lethal solution.
They're part of the class
of small, highly maneuverable
quadcopters getting extensive
use for the first time in Gaza.
The high budget promo suggests
it may have been battle
tested in Palestine,
and the drone is exactly
what Peri is
describing.
And lethality in a complex
urban environment.
A remote controlled
explosive that can be
put next to the target.
Israel is now about
the ninth or 10th
biggest arms
seller in the world.
It depends every year.
How does Israel
become, for a relatively
small country,
one of the biggest arms sellers
in the world?
Yeah, it's true that Israel is
one of the biggest
arms sellers.
We have been also selling a,
all the technology
that can help you
to deal with terrorists.
But I mean, the whole world is
dealing with terrorist activity.
So the market is big.
I would say that
80% of the technology
that we have developed in Israel
is not top secret.
It's something that you
can share with other,
organisations, mainly,
security agencies and armies.
For instance,
the most common technology
that we have developed
here is the Iron Dome.
And now we can
sell Iron Dome
to the whole world.
With a wave of its
innovative wand,
Rafael has developed a
first-of-its-kind
counter rocket artillery mortar
CRAM system,
with pinpoint accuracy
interceptors against
asymmetric threats: Iron Dome.
(missile)
The Iron Dome is
often used to refer
to all of Israel's anti-missile
interception systems.
Together, they make
Israel a world leader
in anti-missile protection
and are a showcase for
Israel's weapons companies,
who are keen to
promote how
cutting edge and
innovative they are.
Arrow three.
The Arrow system counters high
altitude ballistic missiles
and is made by
Israel Aerospace Industries.
IAI also makes the Kfir jet,
heron drones and its own
Jericho ballistic missiles.
They claim to offer
comprehensive
solutions in all domains.
Since Russia's
invasion of Ukraine,
IAI are marketing the
interception systems
to European countries.
To find out more about Israel's
military industrial complex,
I'm going to meet security and
intelligence expert
Yossi Melman.
Israel from the outset decided
we have to build our own,
strong military
industrial complex.
That realization has always been
in the mind of Israel.
We have to be,
on top of our enemies.
From the scientific,
technological point of view.
Israel's been developing a range
of new technologies and weapons,
certain kind of robotics,
certain kinds of drones.
Quadcopters.
Explain a bit about what
you understand is being used.
There has been
a major shift in the
focus of the Israeli industries.
If 30, 40 years ago, Israeli
industries were still selling
rifles, pistols, ammunition.
Nowadays they have moved to more
advanced
technological equipment.
The logic is very positive
to try to minimize Israel's
own casualties, it's safer
to first move into the tunnels
with the robot rather than
sending your foot soldiers.
A formation of autonomous aerial
and ground systems can provide
unprecedented ISR
capabilities to
units on the tactical
edge...
Legion X is the
integrated combat system
for controlling
autonomous robotic
vehicles and drones,
all made by Elbit,
Israel's largest private
weapons producer.
Search and destroy
Legion X is maximized.
Now worth nearly
$10 billion, Elbit promotes
itself as leading the world
in automation and robotics.
(low volume tense music)
And this technical
mastery is key
to how Israel has governed Gaza.
Israel directly occupied
Gaza from 1967
to 2005, when the Israeli army
and settlers withdrew.
But Israel retained
de facto control
over the fundamentals
of the territory.
Power, water,
who could enter and leave,
how far fishermen
could go from the shore,
and even how many calories
people have to eat every day.
(tense music)
The depth of this control was
constantly updated
with technology.
In 2021, Defense Minister Benny
Gantz launched a smart fence
stuffed with the latest tech,
including tunnel
detection equipment.
In 2021, Israel
unveiled a huge amount of
new technology around Gaza.
They spent billions of dollars.
They claim that it was
going to keep Israel
safe, was going to keep
Palestinians,
essentially in Gaza.
What exactly was being
put in place around that time?
Well...
all sorts of equipment.
Israel surrounded Gaza
with all these technologies:
facial recognition,
hacking telephones,
visual intelligence from drones,
reconnaissance flights,
reconnaissance balloons.
Israel had the phone numbers
of many Hamas members,
and not only
Hamas members,
also innocent people.
That information
came from bugging and
listening and
observatory equipment.
So, so Gaza was surrounded
by their equipment and Israel,
believed that they can
control the population
and they control,
above all, Hamas.
The domestic security service,
Shin Bet and the military
intelligence...
they almost adored...
worshipped technology.
But on October the 7th, 2023,
as part of a highly
coordinated offensive,
Hamas drones attacked
the watchtowers,
disabling the CCTV
and automated guns.
With few soldiers
on the border,
the army claims
they were effectively
blind to what unfolded.
Hamas fighters quickly overran
multiple bases,
which were sparsely manned
and not prepared.
(gunfire)
(explosion)
It is said that thousands
of Hamas fighters
and other Palestinians broke out
of Gaza by land, sea and air.
It was the most deadly
single day in Israel's history.
(gunfire)
Israel claims
that 1200 people were killed,
nearly 800 of them civilians
and most of them Israeli,
and that another 250 were
taken back to Gaza as hostages.
According to Hamas
and international organizations,
these numbers
have been inflated.
Hamas' attack begs the question
of how this multi-billion dollar
smart fence,
armed with radar, CCTV
and surveillance drones
could miss an assault
that took years to plan
and rehearse.
So I'm on my way to see
Israel Ziv,
who's a former Israeli general,
and he used to actually head the
Gaza command
for the Israeli army.
And on October 7th, he grabbed
a gun
from his home near Tel Aviv
and went down to near
the Gaza border to try to,
as he says, kill Hamas
terrorists and rescue hostages.
So let's go see him.
Explain what happened
to you on October 7th.
I've learned that I'm still
good, even with the pistol.
I had a chance to rescue
quite a few people, you know.
Some of them were hiding
in the area that
Hamas control.
What do you think,
as far as we know,
went horribly wrong?
Everything.
It's a system collapse.
I think Israel took one step
too far, relying too much
on technology, which, in an area
like Gaza, was very convenient
to put all those visual toys,
you know. And it gave the
feeling that we are protected.
But maybe it wasn't
the technology that failed.
We know that IDF soldiers
monitoring Gaza reported
increased Hamas activity in the
months leading up
to October the 7th.
We saw the maneuvers,
we saw the preparations.
We have listened to the plans.
We have photoed
the terrorists coming.
I know, but for sure that
in the Israeli secret service
and the Israeli intelligence
Army Intelligence Service,
the information was there.
- Before October 7th?
- Before October.
- Yes.
But nobody thought that
it's really going to happen.
Everybody thought that, you
know, Hamas would not dare.
Maybe they do a terror act,
but not such an operation.
The biggest failure starts from
the higher level of command,
which actually refuses to...
to believe
or to see it coming.
Despite the supposed failure of
the technology to stop
the October the 7th attack,
2024 is predicted
to be the best year
yet for Israel's arms industry.
(tense music)
And while the Israeli
army may have
been slow to react,
on October the 7th
they quickly announced their
intention to unleash
hell on Gaza.
(explosions)
What Israel calls the
Swords of Iron war,
has resulted
in unprecedented
levels of death and destruction.
I've come to one of the few
places in Israel where you
can see that with your own eyes.
I'm in the Israeli town
of Sterod
and behind me is Gaza.
We're pretty much as
close as we can get.
All these religious
Jewish people
who are behind me gathered
as the sun is going down. Many
of them actually want to settle
Gaza, occupy Gaza, build
settlements in Gaza,
and they're treating it almost
like a family get together.
There are kids,
they're having fun
they're smiling
and taking photos.
It's pretty surreal.
Seeing Gaza here and knowing
what's happened
since October 7th,
the mass destruction,
the mass killing,
it's... yeah,
pretty overwhelming.
(atmospheric music)
The war has killed more
than 40,000 Palestinians
and seen more than 80% of Gaza's
buildings rendered unusable.
It might look like random
destruction.
But Israel would claim
these are all valid targets,
and they're all generated by the
latest innovation
from unit 8200,
a new system powered
by artificial intelligence.
(tense music)
I've come to Tel Aviv to
meet the investigative team
who first revealed
how AI is being used in Gaza.
Some in the military felt
that the systems that existed
were not giving
them, in previous wars,
enough targets.
Talk a little bit about what
that meant practically.
In previous wars,
what is called in Israel,
the target bank, was very
swiftly, was empty.
Previously they would produce
200, 300 targets a year,
and now they can
produce it in an hour.
The AI targeting
systems are only
possible because, as we've seen,
Israel collects data on every
aspect of Palestinian life.
The system, called the gospel,
also takes in historical
and geographic data to generate
infrastructure locations
that the AI thinks are
probably linked to Hamas.
These include tactical targets
like military bases and tunnels.
But there's another category
called power
targets that include
residential towers
and civic buildings
like schools and medical centers
and Al Shifa hospital.
They are being hit,
you know, there to create
a psychological
effect on the Gazans,
pushing them to
go against Hamas.
Of course, this didn't happen.
The Israeli army says
Al Shifa, housed the
Hamas command
and control center.
The bombing of it
resulted in over 1000
people being killed, injured
or disappeared.
25,000 people in
the surrounding area
were also displaced.
Israel never provided evidence
that it had found the command
and control center.
To identify individual
Hamas members,
Unit 8200 created Lavender.
This analyzes the key behavior
traits of active
Hamas operatives,
where they go, who they talk to,
who is in their phone contacts,
and then looks
for anyone in Gaza
with similar characteristics.
What are they talking about?
What kind of words
they're using?
All these kinds of things,
you create a list
of possible members of Hamas
from the very low level,
or even people that are not
really part of
the military wing.
This is basically a death list.
Once you are there,
you are a legitimate target.
(explosion)
The Al Rimel neighborhood,
known
as the backbone of Gaza,
was hit in December 2023.
The Israeli army said it was
because there were
Hamas operatives
concealing themselves there.
The entire area was devastated.
What the AI
generates is not facts,
but targets with a statistically
probable link to Hamas.
Despite this, the systems
have led to another change,
a rise in the acceptable level
of civilian deaths.
(atmospheric music)
Prior to this war,
a very senior,
Hamas commander,
there was collateral damage of,
let's say, five
maximum ten persons.
In this war
it was decided
that for very junior
Hamas militants,
the collateral damage decided
was between 15 and 20.
His family,
and his neighbors
could be killed
in order to kill him.
And if it's a senior
Hamas militant,
then the numbers over 100,
sometimes 300,
and we know it happened.
I wanted to know what
someone close
to the Israeli military thought
about this use of AI.
It's really kind of a big step,
you know, for war
in terms of intelligence
and also decision making,
because it's doing
the right selection
and put in front of the decision
maker much better and clearer
picture in order to
take a decision.
We did of course
ask former General Zeev
about claims Israel and its
AI systems were perpetrating
a genocide in Gaza.
His response?
The standard line
that the Israeli
army is the most
moral in the world.
So I became a big factor
in this whole component
of Intel decision
making, command and control,
of the modern fight.
Storing surveillance
on an entire population
generates a vast amount of data.
Enter Google and Amazon,
who have been building cloud
services and
data farms in Israel
since 2021 under a deal
called Project Nimbus.
After the war began,
the army's computing
division said they
were collecting
so much data they
had to move some
of it onto the civilian cloud.
8200 is using a
cloud service by Amazon
to store huge amount of
information about
people in Gaza,
and that this cloud was used,
at least to help
some of the attacks.
I've been looking
at how Israel's
army and tech sector benefit
from conflict in Palestine,
but could it also
be true of other
countries and multinationals?
To find out more,
I met with Paul Biggar,
the founder of a
billion dollar tech company.
Google's motto used
to be don't be evil.
And it seems like a lot of these
big tech companies Amazon,
Google and others have no issue
with working with Israel.
In fact, they're often
expanding their contracts.
Do they not care
about the reputational damage?
Fundamentally, they're
about making money.
Getting that cloud revenue.
You know, may have started as a
$600 million contract,
but it is,
expanding massively
over the years.
So we are talking,
at the stage where,
where they may
be getting billions
and possibly tens of billions of
dollars from Israel
via Project Nimbus.
They're also setting themselves
up as the de facto people
to talk to when your government
needs to, needs to scale.
And so there's a lot
more governments
that are a lot larger than,
than Israel.
And Google wants to be first
in line for those contracts.
And more importantly,
they've realized
there aren't any
reputational consequences
for what it does.
So it's not just Israel that
uses the Palestinians
to test their products on.
It's actually the whole world.
(atmospheric music)
And there's no greater
arena for testing weapons
than a live war.
(explosion)
The Iron Sting
is a guided mortar
marketed as a
precision weapon.
The Iron Sting is so precise
that it can even
hit a specific room
without causing damage to other
rooms in the same building.
This is its first use in battle.
(explosion)
And looks like it
might have damaged
more than one room.
At least two Israeli
companies have made drones
stable enough to handle gunfire.
This is Elbit's bird of prey,
seen here accompanying an
armored bulldozer into battle.
(strident music)
Eyewitnesses in Gaza
say these drones with guns are
proving terrifying and deadly.
Arms experts have told
us the last moments
of the life of Hamas
leader Yahya Sinwar
were likely filmed on
one of these drones.
His final act to
throw a stick at it.
(tense music)
Talk about some of those things
in Gaza that Israel
has been doing
militarily since October 7th,
and why you think that might
be appealing to other nations?
Everybody knows that
you know, Israel is very
advanced in the technology,
but definitely after such a,
such a war in Gaza,
when people
see the demonstration
in real life and it's working,
it creates, you know, the needs
and understanding how crucial
those things are
and how critical for
others to,
to hold it and to have it.
Now, Israel has
physical access to Gaza,
they're rolling out many of
the surveillance techniques used
in the West Bank.
Unit 8200 is giving soldiers
and drones, AI enabled
surveillance technology
to search for anyone linked to
Hamas or other rebel groups.
The system relies on technology
from Corsight, an Israeli video
analysis company, and
the Israeli army is also using
Google Photos,
which can identify people
from just a fraction
of their face.
We are basically
speaking about a
system where the
government where
the private sector
producing and exporting
the facial
recognition technique,
they test those
technologies in Palestine
and the occupied
Palestinian territory.
So occupying
people is profitable
because it's not only you
take the resources of the land.
Now we are speaking about
digital occupation, where also
your data is a new resource
to develop new technologies
and to start selling
that worldwide to
profit from oppressing
other people.
But perhaps the most
advanced and game
changing weapon being
used in the Gaza war
is the targeting of human beings
by artificial intelligence.
So do you think that tools like
Lavender, the Gospel,
there's a decent
chance of Israel
could potentially be selling
those tools to other militaries?
I think it's a very
fair possibility
that Israel will sell it.
And this is, I think,
one of the reasons
they allowed our
story to be published.
Just explain a bit
what you mean by that.
You have to file any report
that relates to the military,
to the military censorship,
and they can allow, disallow.
I suspect there were people in
Israel who wanted
the world to know
that they have very,
very sophisticated
AI surveillance methods
that can collect and kill.
Being here again,
I've seen how physical
barriers and high
technology divide
this land in a way many human
rights organizations
call apartheid.
I've seen how this
has allowed Israel
to create world
leading surveillance
and arms industries who
export their products globally.
(atmospheric music)
We are in Tucson, Arizona,
and it is searingly hot.
I 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 US-Mexico border.
So the technology
and the companies
who are operating in Palestine
are often appearing
in other countries
around the world,
including right here
on the US-Mexico border.
(moody guitar playing)
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 the kids
to the Tucson
area and get out of here,
get out of the desert itself.
So 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?
A little bit dirty.
Usually they come from,
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 water from.
But there's absolutely
nothing here.
Right.
But people aren't dying
of starvation out here,
they're dying of thirst.
And what forces people
to take these precarious routes,
of course, is the famous wall
along the border with Mexico.
In Tucson, 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 Elta 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 various parts of this
border which use
Israeli made Elbit
surveillance towers.
And now we're going to look
for those surveillance towers.
I'm 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 Elbit
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 could see at
least 7.5 miles away.
Regular cameras, thermal energy
cameras, and a ground
sweeping radar system
that supposedly has a,
13 mile radius.
Probably we're standing on
an underground motion sensor.
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.
It might be zooming in
right...
on us at this,
at this very moment.
Exactly.
On one visit here,
a Border Patrol
agent boasted to
him that just seeing
the towers on the hill forced
migrants to take
more remote routes.
And then he said, well, then
we go to what is a chokepoint,
and we intercept the people when
they come through
the chokepoint.
There's a correlation
between people dying
and these towers that work in
tandem with the
actual border wall.
(tense music)
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 9-11.
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 Cellebrite.
This allows them
to extract all the
data from mobiles
in their possession
without a password.
And the border has been
patrolled by a Hermes
450 drone,
also made by Elbit 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.
(brooding music)
The tech park at the
University of Arizona
was keen to get Israeli
companies to locate here
at the time Elbit was
awarded the tower contract.
We are going to meet
Bruce Wright,
who used to head the Arizona
tech park when 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 community
(brooding music)
Good to meet you.
Welcome to Tucson.
Elbit is an Israeli
based company, but they created
a US subsidiary and they wanted
to demonstrate this technology
along the US-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
in trying to use
technology to manage
their problems, whether they be,
you know, terrorism or border
crossings or
whatever it might be.
(vibrant electronic
score)
National border security
is often challenged
by difficult
topographic conditions
and vast areas of interest.
Since Elbit secured the
$200 million Arizona deal,
the fixed towers
have made it into
the current Torch-X
borders promo.
Elbit systems has
the technology,
knowhow and real world
operational experience.
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
Tohono O'Odham nation.
It's as far as the eye can see.
So yeah, we're a
pretty special farm.
Because their land crosses
the US-Mexico border,
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,
for centuries, to being an
occupied, militarized community,
it is very traumatizing.
(brooding music)
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 Nogales,
which is a major crossing point.
We're in the line
to cross from the US to Mexico,
I'm gonna have to
turn the camera off.
And you can't take guns either,
just to keep the
authorities happy.
(gentle, relaxed music)
Here we are, Mexico City.
So loud!
This incredible country
of 130 million people
is renowned for its culture,
food and music.
(music continues)
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.
(tense music)
This roundabout in the center
of Mexico City is dedicated to
some of the estimated 60,000
people who've been disappeared,
often with the collusion
of law enforcement.
In 2014, there were 43
students who disappeared.
Ten 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 Ibanez
has been a regular
at this protest encampment
for the last ten 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.
(tense music)
Led by the families,
the movement for justice
was seen as a threat
by successive governments,
and the Israeli spyware 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 Pegasussed,
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,
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 spyware.
Hi!
- Hi!
But before we could talk,
he wanted to check that
my phone wasn't infected.
It will not only
compromise you,
but everyone who
has contacted you.
So it's, it's surveillance
that goes beyond
their main target.
What we're gonna do
is that we are 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 broadcasts 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.
So it's good.
- It's negative.
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?
Are we talking daily?
Yeah, almost.
When the lawyer's phones were
first compromised in 2016,
Luis 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 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 journalists,
human rights defenders,
activists,
politicians, government
officials themselves.
Another sales document,
this one from 2022,
revealed the Mexican army was
acting in an
unconstitutional way.
The heading of the email
and the document,
it's called... (indistinct)
or like "deadly document"...
something like that.
That supposed to be funny?
- I don't know if it's
supposed to be
funny or it's 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 a 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
I 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.
(tense music)
They could reveal their clients.
They have allegedly backups
of all the people
that have been surveilled.
Definitely,
that gives Israel power over
the Mexican position.
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,
issues like the apartheid
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.
(army marching drums)
The EU is the
second largest buyer
of Israeli weapons.
(marching band music)
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 two kilometers from Turkey,
to see how Israeli surveillance
tech is central to the EU's
vision for border security.
We're meeting
Petra Molnar,
who is an anthropologist
and a global expert
on migration and borders.
Good to see you.
Samos, I think,
is a really important
place to try and understand,
because it was one
of the first camps
that was constructed to deal
with a mass influx of people
who were escaping the
Syrian war back in 2015, 2016.
On the hillside, just outside
the main town of Vathy,
the old camp was
built for 650 people
that was rapidly
overwhelmed, with up to 9000.
(brooding music)
It was a bustling
city within a city, almost kind
of spilling down the hillside
like a glass of milk
into the city of Vathy there.
People had to build their own
ramshackle tents, 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.
(atmospheric music)
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,
the authorities decided that
something had to
be done to this camp.
And therefore they
obviously decided they
want to build
something more high tech
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 this one.
In 2021, thousands of
refugees were moved
to the new Closed Control
Access Center, or CCAC.
Much better living conditions,
but at the same time, increased
security provisions
for the benefit
of asylum seekers,
for the benefit of
the staff
and for the benefit of the
local communities.
This CCAC is up a hill eight
kilometers 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
living and there
are cameras in the corridors.
There's also cameras
on some of the taller poles.
People have
reported drone usage,
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?
Rouli 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 am
in Guantanamo now.
Sometimes I was exiting my
container to get fresh air.
Like, I cannot be in this box.
You look here like
there is a camera.
You look there like
there's a camera.
You turn like this,
there is a camera.
And then beside that,
like everywhere,
there are police officers,
security guards.
You're controlled. Your life,
it's... under control,
twenty four seven.
You feel like everyone
like is staring at you.
Like as you are, like...
Like... the most dangerous
person in the world.
(tense music)
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
and the Closed 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 Hyperion,
this 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 Migration's website,
you can see that
they report that
there's, behavioral or motion
recognition
analytics that is being
used in the Centaur system.
To our understanding,
there's CCTV cameras and drones,
which are then, live streamed
to a control center in Athens.
This is known as Centaur
and controls the Samos 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 Viisights,
which is supported
by the Israeli
army and intelligence services.
It goes to these policies of
exclusion and
technologies of control.
I mean, I was in the
occupied West Bank last year
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 Industries
signed a $50 million deal to
provide the drones
to the EU's border
force Frontex.
Introducing
Heron Maritime UAS
with a multi-sensor payload
tailored to the mission
and with 24 hours of endurance.
Known as a fixed wing drone,
the Heron has a range of up
to 1000km 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.
In just the first ten
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 water.
All of 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 pushbacks.
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 Israeli
company Elbit
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 2020, and the Coast
Guard has had one since 2022.
(gunshots)
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 Rouli
experienced multiple
times during his
attempts to reach Greece.
They were like,
hitting us with the iron, metal.
And they were like,
destroying the motor
and asked us,
like to throw the oil,
(indistinct)
to not be able to cross
after when they... leave.
We've made 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 says after 2020, almost no
one arrived at the camp.
After March 2020,
the numbers to Samos
were ridiculous,
I think it was like
25 people in total.
But you cannot have zero
arrivals for the whole year.
They proved that they can
control 100% of the arrivals.
That changed in June 2023, when
the Greek
coastguard tried to tow
a refugee boat,
the Adrianna, 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 Samos,
the pause
resulted in more
people in the camp.
And that's why from 300 people,
400 people that were there,
within two maximum three months,
we had 4000 people in the camp.
The reason behind
that is because
they stopped doing pushbacks.
We've looked at
the official data for
arrivals and the
numbers in the camp,
and they broadly
support what he's saying.
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.
(lively music)
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,
is the 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.
We'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
early this year
by drones,
and there's a connection
with how Israel
treats Palestinians.
So we want to go and speak to
them, understand what happened.
This was the response of
the authorities to Sikh farmers
peacefully protesting
at the removal
of price protections
for their crops.
Six months later, they're still
camped out on the
motorway in protest.
Pushpinder Singh remembers how
the police used a tactic new
to India: dropping
tear gas from drones.
This is one of the
farmers' 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.
Dropping tear gas?
The police drones
were supplied by Driishya,
a company owned by the state
of Haryana.
To find out more
we met the former chief
operating officer of Driishya,
also a former wing commander
in the Indian Air Force.
In 2018, Haryana 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?
Haryana's chief minister led
the delegation, which visited
Israel Aerospace Industries,
where they were briefed about
innovations in
aerospace and defense.
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 Driishya drones were
initially being used
for surveillance of the farmers,
says the wing commander.
This is far from the only
exchange of ideas and weapons
between India and Israel.
I promise to defend you.
In this Bollywood style song
Israel sings his
allegiance to India.
Shield you and support you.
While dancing
around the products of
Israeli missile
manufacturer Rafael.
I believe in you.
To find out how this
relationship came about
I'm meeting defense
expert Rahul Bedi.
Hi!
- Hi! Lovely to meet you.
How are you?
- He says things changed
when India's previous main
weapons supplier,
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 Make In India policy,
the Adani Group
and Israeli company
Elbit are making
a version of the
Hermes 900 drone in Hyderabad.
Israel Aerospace
Industries has set up
a joint venture with
Bharat Electronics
to maintain the IAI design
medium range surface to air
missiles used across
India's armed forces.
And India has made its space
launch capacity
available to Israel.
With surveillance satellites
to surveil their borders
in Gaza and in the
Northern Territories.
They launched another satellite
soon after.
It was called RISAT,
R, I, S, A, T,
with the X-ray radar
supplied by IAI,
Israel Aircraft Industries,
which helps India
monitor its line of
control with Pakistan.
(crowd noise)
After October 7th, there was
a huge increase in pro-Israel
social media posts by right wing
Hindu groups like this.
This street level
support enables
more establishment
Hindu nationalists
to go even further,
especially around
India's disputed
territory of Kashmir.
This is a dawn of a new era
in the great friendship
between India and Israel.
I think it heralds
a flourishing of our partnership
to bring prosperity and peace
for both our peoples.
At the offices
of the independent news site
The Wire, I'm 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...
homeland for Jews
and Jews are the
only authentic Israelis.
Israel is a Jewish state.
Their counterparts in India
envision India as a Hindu state,
as a Hindu Russia, where
Hindus are the only authentic...
Indians.
So I think that's very important
glue that binds the,
the two governments
at this stage.
After independence in 1948,
India saw itself as a
post-colonial leader
and was one of the first
to recognize Palestine.
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,
going back to before India
was an independent country.
(bright music)
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
Israel than anyone
else in the world.
But actually what we've
discovered being here,
is it 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 to what extent
Israel helped support
the apartheid regime here.
So we're in Cape Town,
South Africa,
and first, we're at the
richest, poshest
part of the city
to see this incredible wealth.
It's no accident
that Seapoint remains
one of the wealthiest
areas in South Africa.
Under apartheid, only white
people were able to live here.
(gentle music)
Instituted in 1948,
the apartheid
policy was a form of
racial discrimination
that saw whites,
coloreds 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 just on the way to a township
on the outskirts of Cape Town
where we're going
to see the
reality of what
apartheid was like.
And we're going to
meet up with a woman
called Henriette,
who was campaigning
against it for years.
There are townships
on either side of this
highway established
during apartheid,
to provide labor
for the factories
a bit further down.
(gentle music)
This is the outskirts of Langa,
the black township.
Even now, it's dominated
by informal settlements
built by people
who can't find
any other housing.
It's just so shocking
and enraging.
On the other side of the highway
is Bonteheuwel, a township
established for colored people,
which included those
who were mixed race,
indigenous
and of Asian heritage,
where I'm meeting
Henriette.
Hello.
- Hello.
(dog barking)
Wow, what a
beautiful garden.
(gentle music)
I was born in the apartheid
system, so for me it was normal.
Nie blankes... 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 standards.
We would sit on hard wooden
benches in the train,
and they would have cushy,
seats.
How was apartheid
enforced exactly?
The police and the army
during the 80s, 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 weren't
stationed there, they
were doing the
rounds on our streets.
So, they were everywhere.
(brooding music)
Apartheid was resisted
from the beginning,
but by the 1980s,
the African National Congress
and other groups were
organizing mass protests.
(crowd noise)
Henriette was
one of the activists.
(atmospheric music)
This is what's called
Freedom Square.
Yeah.
We would sit, waiting on news,
waiting on who's been arrested,
waiting on what
is the next plan.
We had a running battle here
with the police, for instance,
and the police would come there.
We would throw
stones about whatever.
Then I would quickly run.
I would go and grab a
grandchild in a pram
and come back
and watch the police
as if I did nothing.
Or pretend that
you were the mother.
Yes. Yes.
- Right.
Whatever you need to do, right?
- Yes.
Despite these efforts,
Henriette was arrested
14 times by the police,
who routinely beat
political organizers.
I had comrades
of mine who were tied to beds.
They would put
things up their rectums.
Males whose genitals
were banged
into filing drawers.
(brooding music)
Women being taken
by the hair
thrown from one wall to
the other, to the other.
(crowd noise)
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.
(crowd noise)
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 the South African Israel
relationship,
kind of at the
height of apartheid.
This is from 1976.
They really need
stuff quite desperately.
So they've purchased,
six, 130 millimeter
ammunition systems from
Israel for 2.7 million rand.
Israel in general
was a huge supplier
of ammunition to
the apartheid 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 left
wing government
of the newly independent Angola.
In 1976,
South African Prime Minister
John Vorster visited Israel amid
speculation the countries
were working on an arms deal.
If you look at the amount of
weapons being bought, around
1 billion USD from the 70s into
the 80s by the apartheid state,
that's an incredible
inflow of money into the Israeli
economy just when they need it.
And so just from a
demand perspective,
it'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 flow
of funds happening,
but there's also
a flow of expertise
that the apartheid 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 kibbutz.
But the relationship went
deeper than just weapons.
This is from Milan
to the 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 in other places
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.
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 exchange technology.
Towards the mid
to the late 1980s,
when South Africa have
essentially developed,
nuclear weapons capacity,
we know that
there are high level
discussions between the Israelis
and the South Africans about
missile technology
and developing
kind of mid to long range
missiles
that could carry a nuclear load.
South Africa
gave up its nuclear
weapons along with
apartheid 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
apartheid 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 apartheid
South Africa for decades.
And I think it tells us a lot
about how Israel was willing
to use its technology
not only to survive,
but to support
other regimes
that agree with its vision
of racial supremacy.
(crowd noise)
I've come back to Israel
to try to understand
where this idea comes from.
This is one of the
regular protests
calling on the government to
bring the hostages
home from Gaza.
So hundreds of thousands
of people that way,
hundreds of thousands
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 Hamas 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 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?
- To end the war?
To make a deal,
to end the war.
Bring all of them back home.
Save lives...
of... of them,
of our soldiers... the
people on the other side.
You mean Palestinians?
They also have innocent people.
A lot of people in Israel, even
on the left, centre 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 Palestinians
who live in Israel.
To find out why this is,
I'm 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.
Right.
That's 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
is one state in
the world that not
only ignores endless
resolutions 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,
its 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, so it's Muslims
or others.
So much of the
world increasingly
is dealing with
the climate crisis,
growing numbers of refugees,
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's doing
right here in Gaza,
they see that
in fact, as a reason
to copy Israel even more,
because 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.
(tense music)