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.

Karim Mattar, Associate Professor of English at the University of Colorado Boulder

"The most remarkable achievement of Jennifer Ruth and Jan Haaken’s The Palestine Exception is how it situates Palestine human rights activism in the longer history of civil rights activism both in the US and around the world... It demonstrates how against intersecting forms of racialized colonial violence, the empathy and commitment of regular citizens—most notably in the film, students—has always triumphed in the end..."

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Portland DSA

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Jewish Palestinian Alliance of Oregon

Jewish protesters being arrested by Portland police