Middle East Research and Information Project

Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

Lori Allen

Lori Allen is reader in anthropology at SOAS University of London. She is the author of The Rise and Fall of Human Rights: Cynicism and Politics in Occupied Palestine (Stanford, 2013) and A History of False Hope: Investigative Commissions in

Current Analysis

Paradise Now's Understated Power

Joining Ang Lee, director of the gay cowboy epic Brokeback Mountain, among the winners at the January 16 Golden Globes award ceremony was the director Hany Abu-Assad, a Palestinian born in Israel whose Paradise Now took home the prize for best foreign language film. While critics of all persuasions

Lori Allen • 10 min read

Current Analysis

Uncertainty and Disquiet Mark Intifada's Third Anniversary

Standing on a platform in the central traffic circle of the West Bank city of Ramallah, a number of speakers urged a crowd of roughly 300 to continue the Palestinian intifada that completed its third year on September 28, 2003. The men pledged their support to President Yasser Arafat, confined

Lori Allen • 11 min read

MER Article

Palestinians Debate "Polite" Resistance to Occupation

When an August 2002 opinion poll released by the US-based NGO Search for Common Ground showed that majorities of Palestinians would support a non-violent intifada, many residents of the Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem greeted the results with suspicion. "They're trying to make us be 'polite,'" one le

Lori Allen • 13 min read

MER Article

There Are Many Reasons Why

Izz al-Din al-Masri, 23, was considered to be an ordinary fellow, until he went to Jerusalem on August 9, 2001, and blew himself up inside a pizzeria, killing 15 Israelis and injuring scores of others. The montage photo produced for his martyr poster shows him in his early twenties, a bit somber, we

Lori Allen • 7 min read