The Palestine Exception

The Palestine Exception (2026)

Documentary

After years of right-wing assaults on higher education, attacks took a new form in 2023 and 2024 that has been described as the new McCarthyism. As students across the country organize protests against Israel's war on Gaza, decades-long taboos in academia around criticism of Israel-the "Palestine exception"-are shattered. This film features professors and students as they join calls for a ceasefire and divestment from companies that do business with Israel and face waves of crackdown from administrators, the media, the police and politicians. Scholars from diverse disciplines explain what is at stake in these protests and why so many young people identify with the Palestinian cause. The documentary unfolds as a story of college campuses as sites of both rebellion and repression, places where personal and collective histories converge in unexpected ways.

Directors: Jan Haaken, Jennifer Ruth.

Casts

	Ellen Schrecker as
	Jennifer Gaboury as
	Judith Butler as
	Premilla Nadasen as
	Saree Makdisi as
	Sophie Smith as
	Ted Khoury as

Crew