The Calculus of Survival: Necropolitics, Siege, and the Deionization of Life in Gaza

By Malik Mukhtar

In The Calculus of Survival, Malik Mukhtar delivers a piercing and meticulously researched account of Gaza's transformation from a self-sufficient society into an engineered zone of dependency and despair. Through the lens of necropolitics, the book examines how power operates not merely through war, but through the slow violence of bureaucracy, blockade and deprivation.

From calorie counts and "red line" policies to the weaponization of water, agriculture and aid, Mukhtar exposes a system designed to regulate existence itself. Each chapter traces how Gaza became a laboratory of control—where humanitarianism masks domination, law becomes a tool of erasure and survival itself is politicized.

Blending investigative analysis, historical evidence and moral inquiry, The Calculus of Survival explores:

The bureaucratic architecture of siege and economic strangulation.
The manipulation of aid, labor and water as instruments of political control.
The global complicity that sustains Gaza's suffering under the guise of humanitarianism.
The rhetoric of annihilation that normalizes genocide in public discourse.
Acts of steadfastness (Sumud) and grassroots solidarity that redefine survival as resistance.

This book is both a forensic study of power and a moral indictment of a world that has normalized the politics of starvation. The Calculus of Survival stands as a vital contribution to contemporary discussions on empire, ethics and the right to exist.

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