A new BBC documentary examining Israeli settlers and their treatment of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank has received widespread praise this week and shed light on the brutal reality that Palestinians experience daily.
The Settlers, created by one of Britain’s most famous documentary filmmakers, Louis Theroux, gives the viewer a glimpse into the occupied Palestinian territories beset by Israeli settlers.
Theroux meets some of the growing community of religious-nationalist Israelis who have settled in the occupied West Bank.
Told through the eyes of Theroux and the words of the settlers themselves, Theroux visits the house of the “godmother” of the Israeli settler movement, Daniella Weiss, who boasts that she can phone Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s aides. He speaks to many settlers and their interactions with the Palestinians, causing a firestorm of commentary on social media.
Many online shared clips from the documentary, criticising what they called the “daily horror” and unfair treatment of Palestinians.
One social media user shared the scene where, at the end of the documentary, Theroux has to hide from the Israeli army as they are looking for Palestinians.
“Theroux says, Can we ring the police? And the Palestinian laughs, saying, “There is no one who will protect them from Israel.”
Many social media users focused on the hypocritical treatment that Palestinians face daily in their encounters with Israeli soldiers. Theroux highlighted the fact that a Palestinian cannot visit his own city, even though there’s a “visitor centre for tourists”.
Social media users have pointed out that human rights conditions are always very different for Palestinians.
Theroux previously made a film in the West Bank in 2010. In an interview with Deadline, he said, “I was struck by the way in which a group of people were able to pursue an openly expansionist ethnonationalist vision while enjoying the benefits of a separate and privileged legal regime to those around them and being protected by the Israeli army.”
Now he’s back, he says, because after the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023, he heard that “the settler community had cranked up its activities”.
Many online took a humorous approach to the way Israeli settlers spoke in the documentary, which many defined as complete “audacity”.
One social media user said, “All Theroux did was to let Israeli settlers keep talking.”
Many pro-Israeli social media users criticised the documentary and Theroux, accusing him and the BBC of being “antisemitic”.
In response, social media users said, “there is nothing more antisemitic than handing Israelis a microphone and letting them talk”, referring to the fact that the Israeli settlers talk about their own normal and daily life, but that they are stealing land from the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
Throughout the documentary, the viewer is reminded that settlements are illegal under international law. We also see Theroux encounter extremist settlers from the US, who seemingly don’t have any roots in the occupied West Bank or Palestine, outside of their Zionist ideology.
In one encounter, a man calls Theroux from a car in the Palestinian city of Hebron, using an unmistakable New York accent. “How are you doing? What’s up?”
“American?” Theroux asks.
“What do I look, Chinese?” the man says, which was widely shared and criticised online.
Social media users also pointed out the fact that the documentary is particularly important because earlier this year, the BBC pulled a documentary on Gaza’s children, after it was revealed that the 10-year-old narrator’s father is a technocrat in Gaza.
Israeli settler incursions at Al-Aqsa Mosque complex have increased by more than 18,000 percent since 2003, when Israeli authorities began allowing settlers to bypass the Islamic Waqf’s management and controversially enter Islam’s third-holiest site.
According to figures from the Waqf, the organisation that administers the historic mosque complex, exactly 289 settlers entered Al-Aqsa in 2003 through the Mughrabi Gate.
On Saturday, armed Israeli settlers abducted two Palestinian men for several hours, subjecting them to severe beatings before releasing them late at night.
Such abductions, attacks on Palestinians, and storming of Muslim sites by Israeli settlers have become a daily reality for Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank, as many reports have shown, especially since October 2o23.