In 2010, the journalist interviewed Jewish ‘ultra-Zionists’ — now he finds them growing in number and defiance
Disarming approach: Louis Theroux, right, returns to the West Bank © Josh Baker
In 2010, the documentarian Louis Theroux visited the occupied West Bank to meet Jewish settlers who had moved to Palestinian territory in contravention of international law. In the 14 years since The Ultra Zionists aired, the number of settlers has increased to more than 700,000: roughly a tenth of Israel’s entire Jewish population. Violence against Palestinians and displacement of them by settlers have also escalated year-on-year — reaching unprecedented levels in the wake of the October 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas terrorists in 2023, and the ensuing war in Gaza.
With tensions mounting and settlers emboldened by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition, Theroux now returns to the region for new BBC film The Settlers. A potent and thoroughly dispiriting hour-long documentary, it focuses on members and figureheads of the radical Zionist movement and their efforts to grow their presence and consolidate their position in the West Bank.
In an improvement on its predecessor, the film also provides a Palestinian perspective. The Settlers highlights how expansionist ideologies shape the everyday reality of some 3mn people who live under a military occupation that impinges on basic rights in order to protect settlements considered illegal under international law. Theroux approaches his outspoken yet guarded subjects with his usual brand of disarming faux naivety and well-honed questioning style that invites interviewees to reveal the extent of their views and expose their hypocrisies.
Conversations with Daniella Weiss, the so-called “godmother” of the settler project, expose both a fervid zealotry and a chillingly blasé attitude towards the Palestinians. When Theroux suggests that her advocacy for the removal of Palestinians from the West Bank would be defined as a war crime, she laughs before proudly showing off plans for the resettlement of Gaza. Another settler, a Jewish-American man named Ari, fails to see the irony of branding Palestinians a “death cult” as he stands clutching a rifle and arguing in favour of ethnic cleansing.
After all these years, there’s little that can shock Theroux, but he is visibly incredulous and irritated when Israeli soldiers attempt to interrupt and intimidate him as he documents the restrictions placed on Palestinians in towns with settler enclaves. In Hebron, where Theroux meets Palestinian activist Issa Amro, he witnesses first-hand how strictly locals’ movements are controlled and how little freedom they have to cross or conduct business across IDF-manned checkpoints.
While the film does well to bring attention to frictions that have been intensifying outside of a news cycle dominated by the conflict in Gaza, it is perhaps too centred on individuals and fringe extremists. The narrow focus makes it hard to illuminate the region’s fraught politics. A comment by Weiss about off-the-record government support for her proposals is alarming but left largely unexplored; a glimpse of national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir giving a speech at a settler rally comes with little context on how a man once convicted of “incitement to racism” has come to inform policy.
Still, this is a lucid documentary on a bleak situation that one fears will still be playing out in another 15 years. A brief scene depicting pro-peace Israeli activists trying to shield Palestinian olive farmers from settlers and soldiers gives at least the faintest hope of an alternative.
★★★★☆
April 27 at 9pm on BBC2 and iPlayer thereafter