The Racket Never Stops

There are many different ways to frame the continuing onslaught on the Gaza Strip: as a monstrous revenge for October 7, as an opportunistic ‘final solution to the Palestinian question’, as a push to build ‘greater Israel’ or to shore up the eastern flank of the empire centred in Washington. But it has also served – as all IDF operations do – as both a test-bed and a shop window for Israel’s latest weapons technology.

Andrew Feinstein, who may be the world’s leading authority on the global arms industry, is working on a new book titled ‘Making a Killing: How the West profits from slaughter in Gaza and Yemen’.

Andrew Feinstein was an ANC member of South Africa’s parliament from 1994 to 2001. He served as deputy chair of the country’s audit commission before resigning in protest at his party’s refusal to allow an independent inquiry into a huge arms deal tainted by allegations of high-level corruption.

He is the author of The Shadow World: Inside the global arms trade (2011). The film that was based on it, Shadow World, was declared ‘best documentary’ at the 2016 Edinburgh and Valladolid International Film Festivals and the 2017 Ostend Film Festival.

In the 2024 general election, he ran against Keir Starmer as an independent candidate and helped to slash his majority. He continues to campaign vigorously against him locally.