Degrees of exclusion
The politics of heat adaptation in Palestine-Israel, 1950-1980
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4464787 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Tuvaal Klein (Tel Aviv University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 75-95 |
| Publication date | 2024-10-21 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Environment and Planning E Nature and Space (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2514-8486 • E-ISSN: 2514-8494 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/25148486241289755 |
| OpenAlex | W4403609566 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 39 |
This article investigates the development of Israeli heat adaptation research from 1950 to 1980 and its role in advancing Israeli nation-building and settler-colonial policies. Focusing on the scientific career of the Zionist military doctor Ezra Sohar, renowned for reforming the Israeli Defence Forces' "water discipline," the article traces the emergence of Israeli thermal physiological research. It reveals the shift from the view that certain races were better adapted to specific climates to a "universalized" notion of acclimatization as a physiological process possible to anyone. The universal notion of acclimatization created new forms of exclusion, as the indigenous Arab-Palestinian population, particularly Bedouins, lost their perceived racial advantage in heat adaptation; Jewish-Israeli thermal physiologists argued that Jews were better adapted to heat due to cultural factors. Finally, the article follows Sohar's advocacy for air conditioning, which he promoted as the "ideal solution" for establishing a Western, "developed" Israeli society. Thus, the article demonstrates how the rise of air conditioning during this period further reinforced the exclusion and marginalization of Bedouin communities. It illustrates how planetary dynamics of climate injustice and colonialist policies manifest locally and highlights heat exposure as a form of colonial violence. Sohar's story provides insight into a scientific community driven by the ambition to conquer heat, reflecting a political logic that, to this day, leaves neither past heat adaptation practices nor air conditioning as possible solutions for Bedouin communities coping with a rapidly warming planet
Ancient history · Palestine · Political science · Politics · History · Law · Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts · Psychology · Transboundary Water Resource Management · Water Governance and Infrastructure
Political Biology
Thermal Comfort and the Heat Stress Indices
Race to the Finish
Zionism and the Eros of Science and Technology
Bedouin Bureaucrats
Zionism and Technocracy
The Palestinian press and the general strike, April–October 1936
Critical Heat Studies
Land of Progress
Milk and Honey
The SabraThe Creation of the New Jew
Land and Desire in Early Zionism
Reassembling the Social
Israel-Palestine Through a Settler-colonial Studies Lens
Moshe Wilbushewich, “Vitamin Bread,” and Rationalizing the Jewish Diet in Mandate Palestine
Rule of Experts
Contributions and perspectives from geography to the study of climate
Imperialism, colonialism, and climate change science
European Jews in the levant heat
State Formation from Below and the Great Revolt in Palestine
How Israel Controls the Bedouin in Israel
The Other Shift
Nomadizing the Bedouins
Two decades of Bedouin resistance and survival under Israeli military rule, 1948–1967
Colonial Pathologies
Air Conditioning the Arabian Peninsula
Indigenous knowledge and the desertification debate
Inescapable Ecologies
We Are Here to Bring the West, Not Only to Ourselves
Human Acclimatization
Memory, the Rebirth of the Native, and the "Hebrew Bedouin" Identity
The Mangle of Practice
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |