Louis Theroux: The Settlers showcases grim reality of West Bank

The National

28-04-2025

The documentarian's latest film, Louis Theroux: The Settlers, is among some of his best works.
In the somewhat sequel to his 2011 documentary The Ultra Zionists about Israeli religious nationalists building illegal settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Theroux finds himself in the territory 14 years later, with the colonisation process far more advanced and even more deadly.
Following the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, while the world's gaze is fixed on the atrocities being carried out in Gaza, nationalists are violently encroaching more into Palestinian land along the West Bank.
READ MORE: Louis Theroux opens up on The Settlers documentary
Backed by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his alliance with the country's religious far-right, settlers are emboldened in their actions as they are protected by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF).
The situation in the West Bank is dire, and Theroux does his best to showcase the fact.
Theroux and his crew repeatedly find themselves subjected to many of the confrontations and intimidation by Israeli settlers and the IDF, which Palestinians endure every day.
In one scene, settlers drive up and point guns with laser sights through the windows of a Palestinian's home at him. In another, he asks checkpoint guards to lower their weapons while he talks with them.
In one particularly intense encounter, Theroux tells a pair of balaclava-wearing Israeli soldiers, 'don't touch me,' as we see a side of the documentarian we've rarely witnessed before.
(Image: Louis Theroux: The Settlers)
'What are you doing in Israel?' one soldier barked at him. 'We are not in Israel are we, we're in the West Bank,' Theroux replies.
He manages to catch the repulsion of the Israeli soldiers from any media scrutiny well in his encounters; at times, you could almost sense the feeling of shame in their actions as they refuse to answer simple questions and conceal their identities.
The film reveals the deep contempt Israeli settlers have for the Palestinian people.
He meets Ari Abramowitz, a Texan settler in the West Bank who refuses to even use the word 'Palestinian', then a rabbi who calls Palestinians 'savages' and 'camel riders'.
Theroux is constantly told by settlers that they don't recognise the Palestinian state, nor do they see its people as people, and that they see the land as their own through religious rights.
As the film progresses, the sense of futility piles up. Theroux is presented with the same arguments repeatedly in an almost ritualistic mantra.
Then he meets the 79-year-old woman known as the 'godmother' of the settler movement, Daniella Weiss.
She has been a key member of the Israeli settler movement for 50 years and is even seen as a sort of celebrity amongst her kin.
Weiss and Theroux verbally battle it out throughout the film as the British filmmaker tries to pry her extremist views from behind her friendly smile.
Their cat and mouse encounters reach a boiling point by the end of the film when Theroux corners Weiss and presses her on settler violence against Palestinians, which she denies.
He says he has witnessed it, notably in a graphic video of a Palestinian being shot in the documentary, which Weiss claims the Israeli was acting in retaliation.
(Image: Louis Theroux: The Settlers)
She then physically shoves Theroux, an action so out of the blue that the camera crew is barely able to catch it.
Weiss taunts him, 'I wish you'd pushed me back'. She was trying to make the point about the framing of the narrative and that settlers are being portrayed as the aggressors.
Although it is evident she was using the opportunity to lash out physically, clearly frustrated she had been pinned into a verbal corner by Theroux, one she couldn't squirm her way out of.
Theroux reacts brilliantly; he doesn't push her back, and he doesn't hold his tongue like he would have in previous documentaries, where he would use the silence for people to draw their own conclusions. He just calls her a sociopath.
She smiles and leaves, seemingly self-aware that the mask didn't just slip; it hit the ground.
Were there certain aspects that I wish Theroux had explored more of? Yes.
The Israeli activists who protest against the settlements were most notably lacking airtime, and it would have been good to see more of the Palestinians' homes, which are impacted, but I can appreciate that an hour can be a tight squeeze to tell a complex story.
One of the biggest surprises seems to be the creative freedom that the BBC has given Theroux.
In February, the broadcaster was criticised after it pulled the documentary Gaza: How To Survive A War Zone, was pulled.
READ MORE: UK to host Palestinian Authority leader for first time in four years
You do wonder how long Theroux's The Settlers will stay up on iPlayer, as it shows a sobering reality of what is happening in the West Bank.
Theroux seems to be back at his best, and it couldn't come sooner as the settler ideology is gaining political traction across the world, with what is going on in the West Bank setting an alarming precedent.
The Settlers aired on BBC Two and is on iPlayer now.