Abstract
This essay focuses on the role of mathematics and Israeli mathematicians in serving the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, since 1967. It analyzes recently de-classified Israeli archival documents from the period 1967–1969, including minutes of ministerial meetings that discussed how to control the newly conquered people and land as discussed by Shafer Raviv (Journal of Contemporary History, 55(1), 161–181, 2018 and Middle Eastern Studies, 57(2), 342–356, 2021) as well as mathematical formulas created 40 years later as part of an Israeli policy to restrict food supplies to the Gaza Strip. It sheds light on the way in which mathematicians and mathematics can be employed to maintain and justify a racialized system of control. Drawing on Bonilla-Silva’s (American Sociological Review, 62(3), 465–480, 1997 and Journal of Political Ideologies, 8(1), 63–82, 2003) racialized social systems approach, the essay argues that mathematics and mathematicians professionalize and legitimize the dominant racial discourse in the Israeli military which, in turn, shapes the social and racial discourse in Israeli society that privileges Israeli Jews over Palestinians.
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Data availability
Data for Fig. 1 were obtained by email from Akevot (Institute for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Research) with reference: Akevot Institute’s Conflict Records Digital Repository document 7831. Data supporting Figs. 2 and 3 are publicly available at Gisha website (https://www.gisha.org) as indicated in “References” below.
Notes
In addition to teaching at the Hebrew University, Dvoretzky was affiliated with Columbia University (NY) and the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton in the USA. He was president of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the 8th president of the Weizmann Institute of Science (“Aryeh Dvoretzky,” 2023).
A second mathematician, Robert Aumann was a Noble laureate, despite the calls to rescind the prize because of his racist views and advocacy of war (McGreal, 2005). Aumann is American too and was affiliated with many American universities such as Yale and Stanford in addition to the Hebrew University.
The Professors Committee included Roberto Bachi who was a statistician and demographer. His role in conducting a census while Palestinians were under military curfew was detailed in Bier (2017).
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Alshwaikh, J. The racial role of mathematicians and mathematics in maintaining the Israeli military occupation. Educ Stud Math (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-023-10255-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-023-10255-8