• This article examines the widely discussed BBC documentary that sheds light on Israel’s settler movement.
• It delves into the unsettling realities that continue to unfold in the West Bank.
Louis Theroux’s latest film, The Settlers, has landed squarely in the spotlight of mainstream media. And for good reason too. It stands as one of his most courageous works to date. But what makes this film so compelling is that Theroux doesn’t need to do much; he gives reality the microphone it needs and steps aside.
Earlier this week, Theroux sat down with Deadline magazine, offering a glimpse into the method behind his disarming on-screen presence. He explained that his goal is to truly understand the perpetrators and to approach them with curiosity. Theroux being a Caucasian, middle-class British man, accompanied by a cameraman lends the film a certain quiet power. His presence grants him access, although of course with much hostility. Needless to say however, if he were replaced with a brown-skinned man bearing a beard, a Muslim name, the same British accent and passport, the outcome would be rather different. It is for this very reason that Theroux’s work is crucial. It captures the vital, relentless grinding reality of apartheid in motion.
Ever since its release, Zionist columnists have been furiously scribbling about how Theroux hadn’t given enough time to understanding Hamas’s ideology. The usual suspects are once again deflecting and daring to suggest that settlers are only a fringe movement in Israel. But hey, who’s listening to them anyway.
While watching The Settlers, I was swept away by a wave of emotion I didn’t expect. I wept, then felt a wrenching physical sickness deep in my gut — a visceral recognition of the suffering of those who I will always feel connected to. Woven into that anguish was something equally powerful: a deep sense of awe for the defiance of the Palestinians of the West Bank. The tears quickly gave way to a hollow numbness.
The documentary lays bare the cold-blooded scorn that settlers harbour for Palestinians. In a disturbing exchange, Theroux speaks with Ari Abramowitz, a settler from Texas who wields the term ‘death cult’ against Palestinians — an accusation steeped in bitter irony, calculated deceit and projection.
Later, a rabbi casually refers to Palestinians as “savages” and “camel riders.” He does so knowing full well that there is a camera man present.
The wife of a settler clings to the name Judea as a so-called divine permission slip— revisionism robed in religious righteousness; justifying her families’ presence on stolen land with the claim that selective fragments of history entitles them to displace others. She ignores centuries of coexistence, followed by imprisonment, displacement, homelessness and murder— occupation, rebranded through the language of Jewish entitlement and myth.
What unfolds in the documentary is the ominous ethnic cleaning of a people. Louis Theroux does not just observe it; he walks through it, exposing the systemic inhumane treatment and cruelty endured daily by Palestinians under occupation. His calm presence is met with raw hostility — a hostility so normalised it rarely registers with those enforcing it.
In one chilling moment, Israeli settlers drive up and aim laser-guided rifles through the window of a Palestinian home. In another, Theroux finds himself pleading with checkpoint soldiers to simply lower their weapons while speaking to him.
In another particularly tense encounter, Theroux warns a pair of masked Israeli soldiers, “Don’t touch me,” revealing a sharper, more unflinching side of the documentarian than we’re used to seeing.
“What are you doing in Israel?” one soldier demands.
“We are not in Israel, are we? We’re in the West Bank,” Theroux offers a quiet, cutting correction — but let’s not stop there. “The West Bank” is a euphemism that softens a brutal reality. There is no West Bank if we look into history. There is only Palestine — an entire land systematically stolen, occupied, and renamed to mask the erasure. Calling it anything else is complicity in that erasure.
Theroux captures a striking pattern: Israeli soldiers and settlers alike often shrink from media attention, dodging even the simplest questions, covering their faces, retreating into silence. You can sense the unease and cowardice behind their refusal to engage. But their silence is as telling as words. And then there are those who are brazen in their deceit— these individuals have read the mandate and know how to fuel Zionist propaganda. However, there is something even more insidious at work here, these individuals collectively work with total impunity and don’t they know it. Furthermore, the guard towers depicted in the film are strikingly reminiscent of the concentration camps that many of us read about in our GCSE History lessons.
Repeatedly, Theroux is told that Palestinians don’t exist — that this land is divinely promised, and that their presence is a problem to be erased. It becomes almost ritualistic, a mantra used to silence morality.
Then comes the encounter with Daniella Weiss, the 79-year-old matriarch of the settler movement, a woman revered in her community and reviled by those who live in her same twisted reality. Weiss is in actual fact, a Polish woman with a strong Eastern European accent. She has helped “settle” 800 families in Palestine. When told that her actions constitute a war crime, she replies, “a light felony”. In a chilling response to Theroux she also asserts that her intentions are to influence the world by using the “magic of Zionism”. It remains unclear whether there is a deeper meaning behind her words.“October 7th was good for us”, Weiss says”. I mean, Of course it was.
Theroux tries to unmask her extremism and wicked ways which hide behind a calm, almost grandmotherly demeanour; a pantomime figure if you will. However, the sad truth is, this is no pantomime. What begins as a battle of words escalates until, cornered by Theroux’s questions about settler violence, Weiss lashes out — physically shoving him.
The moment is jarring, barely caught on film. She then sneers, “I wish you’d pushed me back,” attempting to weaponise the narrative — to flip the script and portray herself as the victim. But the damage is done. Her mask doesn’t just slip — it shatters.
Theroux responds with remarkable composure. He doesn’t retaliate, but neither does he stay silent. “You’re a sociopath.” But it doesn’t seem to break her spirits as she knows her mission will continue (for now, at least). Weiss’s push was symbolic of the whole Israeli regime. She salivates with power, drunk on impunity — unaware that one day, she will face the One whose power eclipses all. Her smile falters, and she walks away — fully aware of how exposed she’s become.
If there’s a single stand out feature in the entire documentary, it’s this: the Jewish settlers captured by Theroux’s crew hail from Texas, Warsaw, Brooklyn — from everywhere and anywhere but the place they now occupy and claim to originate from. Strangers laying ancestral claim to a homeland they’ve never known, while displacing those who’ve lived there for generations. His simple question— where are you from?, lands with devastating weight.
One of the most surprising elements is the creative freedom given to Theroux by the BBC. You can’t help but wonder how long The Settlers will remain available on iPlayer. It shows the world what’s happening in the West Bank with a clarity that’s rare and almost non-existent on mainstream platforms. And it couldn’t have come at a more urgent time, as settler ideology begins to seep into global politics, with chilling implications for the future. Watch it and bear witness, I would strongly suggest.
Moreover, if this is the first time your attention was dragged to this specific part of the world, I’d like to leave you with some statistics, as objectivity is such a valuable faculty.
Since October 7th, the frequency of violent settler attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem has more than doubled, escalating from an average of three to eight incidents a day, according to the United Nations. Consequently, Israel continues to perpetrate heinous atrocities, persistently violating international law both within and outside the Gaza Strip.
A 2017 Amnesty International report reads:
“For half a century, Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip has resulted in systematic human rights violations against Palestinians living there. Since the occupation first began in June 1967, Israel’s ruthless policies of land confiscation, illegal settlement and dispossession, coupled with rampant discrimination, have inflicted immense suffering on Palestinians, depriving them of their basic rights.”
In July 2024, Israel has sanctioned the largest land seizure in the occupied West Bank. This move involved the appropriation of 12.7 square kilometres (nearly 5 square miles) in the Jordan Valley. According to Peace Now, this is the largest single appropriation since the 1993 Oslo Accords.
This land seizure follows the appropriation of 8 square kilometres (roughly 3 square miles) in March and 2.6 square kilometres (1 square mile) in February, marking 2024 as a record year for Israelis stealing land in the West Bank.
