FOUCAULT, EDWARD SAID AND MBEMBE

 

Studying Michel Foucault’s theories of “power” and “the other” and applying this theory to the context of Gaza can provide a profound framework for understanding the conflict beyond mere military clashes. It shifts the focus and helps us to understand how control is maintained over a population through space, knowledge, and daily life.  This essay argues that Gaza represents a hyper-modern 'death-world.' In this space, the discursive dehumanization of the population seems to justify an extensive pervasive system of constant technological surveillance and biological regulation, ultimately reducing all human life to that of absolute sovereign control.

For Foucault, those in power creates certain "discourses"— they create the language, the labels, and the narratives that are used in everyday life. These discourses are then used consistently to define all reality over a period of time.  The population of Gaza is after many years now heavily filtered through a singular discourse of security and threat. By framing the entire territory primarily as a "demographic threat" or a collective security risk, the complex identity of the individuals living there is then systematically and completely erased. To justify extreme measures of control, the state must first construct the other.  By defining the other as permanently dangerous, it becomes an easy next step for the state to justify suspending normal laws, human rights, and international norms, turning Gaza into what theorist Giorgio Agamben (building on Foucault) called a "state of exception"—a place where the law is legally suspended by power.

In addition, Edward Said’s foundational work, Orientalism, is showing how Foucault’s power/knowledge concept can be applied to the colonial world. Said argues that the West didn't just conquer the East militarily, but it conquered it discursively as well by creating a body of "knowledge" that framed the Easterner as irrational, dangerous, and uncivilized.  Said’s theory explains the foundational justification for the blockade and the surveillance of the population of Gaza. This theory helps us to understand why Gaza are depicted not as an aggregate of individuals with diverse political, social, and human identities, but as a singular, monolithic, existential threat.  Before a drone can fly over Gaza or a calorie count can be imposed (Foucault), an Orientalist discourse (Said) must first exist to strip the population of their humanity in the eyes of the international community. This discourse makes extreme, ongoing measures look like "rational security" rather than colonial domination.

Interestingly, Foucault’s metaphor of the Panopticon (a prison design where inmates never know when they are being watched, forcing them to police themselves) seems to be a perfect fit for what is happening in Gaza at present.  Gaza is frequently described by sociologists as a hyper-surveilled space that embodies this architectural power.   Firstly, there is the idea of the “Invisible Eye”.  The present-day reality for people living in Gaza is that the population is subjected to a permanent state of visibility, with drones constantly buzzing overhead, biometric checkpoints, AI-driven facial recognition, and cyber-surveillance. A prison design where inmates never know when they are being watched or who is watching them … The Panopticon.

Foucault also argued that power operates by partitioning space. Gaza’s physical borders—the land walls, naval blockades, and no-go buffer zones—are mechanisms of extreme spatial discipline. The power lies in making the population internalize their confinement.

In addition, Foucault also coined the term biopower to describe how modern states exercise power not just by killing people, but by regulating, managing, and controlling life itself—population growth, health, food, and movement. When applied to Gaza, this manifests as total administrative control over the biological necessities of the population:  For example, in the late 2000s, Israeli military officials calculated the minimum caloric intake needed for Gaza's population to avoid malnutrition without causing outright starvation, using this mathematical data to limit food imports. This is a textbook example of biopower—treating a population as a biological mass to be precisely regulated. 

Interestingly, Political theorist Achille Mbembe extended Foucault's ideas into necro politics—the power to dictate who may live and who must die. In Gaza, this looks like the absolute control over who is allowed to leave for medical treatment, clean water access, and the power to turn off electricity grid infrastructure. Achille Mbembe looked at Foucault’s concept of biopolitics (the management of life) and argued that it didn't go far enough to explain late-modern colonial warfare. In his seminal essay Necropolitics, Mbembe argues that the ultimate expression of sovereignty is not the power to regulate life, but the power to dictate who dies and who is allowed to live in a state of "living death."

Mbembe specifically points to the occupied Palestinian territories as a prime example of necro politics. He describes how modern warfare creates "death-worlds"—unique spaces where entire populations are subjected to conditions of life that confer upon them the status of the "living dead" (where they have no sovereign rights, no control over their environment, and are constantly exposed to the threat of destruction).

Mbembe also introduces the idea of "vertical sovereignty," which fits perfectly with Gaza's geography. Power is exercised from the air (drones, airstrikes), ground (walls, checkpoints), and below ground (control of tunnels, aquifers).  The total control over infrastructure (water, electricity, caloric intake, and medical exit permits) allows the sovereign power to decide who lives and who dies daily.

A crucial element of Foucault's theory is that power is not just top-down (from a government to a citizen); it is capillary, meaning it flows through every layer of society, everyday interactions, and institutions.  Foucault famously stated: "Where there is power, there is resistance."  Foucault says that the mere act of documenting life through journalism, maintaining cultural traditions, teaching children under bombardment, or finding ways to bypass blockades are all forms of counter-conduct … of resistance of power.  Inspite of the fact that, power is everywhere, resistance is also everywhere. By surviving and maintaining a distinct identity against totalizing systems of control, the people of Gaza actively contest the discourse imposed upon them … even at this very moment, this very day!

In conclusion, by studying Michel Foucault’s theories of “power” and “the other” and applying this theory to the context of Gaza these theories can provide a profound framework for understanding the conflict beyond mere military clashes. It shifts the focus and helps us to understand how control is maintained over a population through space, knowledge, and daily life.  It also reminds of the dangers of unchecked power when the sovereign power gets to decide who lives and who dies daily.