Daniella Weiss, one of the central subjects of Louis Theroux’s masterful and vital new BBC documentary The Settlers, has a very clear plan in place for Gaza.
It’s a place from which, according to Weiss – known as the godmother of the settler project – Palestinians will be ethnically cleansed – permanently.
“You will witness how Jews go to Gaza and Arabs disappear from Gaza,” Weiss says early in the film at a rally near the border. “They lost the right to stay in this holy place.”
How will she do it? The same way that she’s successfully established settlements for decades across the occupied West Bank. There, Palestinians have been systematically pushed from their homeland, often violently, to make room for those consciously trying to extend Israel’s borders beyond its internationally recognised legal limits.
First, as she explains, the settlers establish outposts – crudely built camps unsanctioned by the Israeli government, but protected by the Israeli military – near Palestinian towns. With time, the settlers build communities, with houses and infrastructure. When their numbers grow great enough, they plead for official recognition, which is often granted. And thus, a project that began covert and illegal becomes officially sanctioned and permanent.
The same will happen in Gaza, Weiss tells Theroux. And their efforts have already begun.
This, in particular, is why Theroux’s latest documentary is so necessary at this moment in time. The settler movement is well-tread territory in fiction and non-fiction. It’s the subject of the Academy Award-winning documentary No Other Land, Farah Nabulsi’s feature film The Teacher, the second season of Mo Amer’s Netflix series Mo, and Theroux’s 2011 documentary The Ultra-Zionists.
But things have changed since October 7 and the Israel-Gaza war. Reports of settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank have increased, and with the devastation in Gaza leaving the enclave’s future an open question, the movement is attempting to establish itself in destroyed areas before the dust settles.
Theroux’s documentary shows these efforts with a startling clarity. In one sequence, the presenter and his crew join the settlers and several prominent rabbis as Weiss and her partners attempt to get religious sign-off on their plan.
One rabbi speaks plainly: “To my mind, there was never peace with these savages. There is no peace and there never will be. All of Gaza and all of Lebanon should be cleansed of these camel riders. Whoever runs away, good on them. Whoever doesn’t, we will encourage them to do so.”
At this moment, the camera cuts to a military-grade rifle on the back of one of the settlers, implying the threat of violence embedded within the word “encourage”.
This is all illegal, of course – domestically and internationally. And the settlers know that, too. At times, the film shows protests against their plans from pro-peace Israeli activists, and Theroux shares voices from Israeli politicians who believe that settler activity makes Israel less safe. But this is waved off by the settlers. After all, they’ve seen this time and again: It’s all illegal – until it isn’t.
Theroux, who has for decades brought his unassuming and matter-of-fact style of journalism around the world to interview everyone from neo-Nazis to convicted sex offenders, has rarely looked as shaken than he appears in The Settlers.
At one point late in the film, the ever-impartial Theroux is in conversation with Weiss again, as she describes his complete disregard for the lives of Palestinians.
“To think of other people and [their] children not at all – that seems sociopathic. Doesn’t it?” Theroux asks.
Weiss responds with a laugh. “Not at all. This is normal.”
Theroux isn’t compelled to retort. He doesn’t make judgments for his audience. He merely presents a viewpoint. His subjects come off as human and get a chance to make their case. That is what makes his style so disarming and effective.
And his natural, unthreatening manner often provokes more from his interviewees than words ever could. Late in the film, Weiss aggressively pushes Theroux to provoke a reaction – to prove that violence will always provoke violence – and her eyes fill with apparent anger when she realises he won't push her back. The truth of the settler dynamic has been more clear than she's comfortable with.
This film, which features conversations with Israelis, Palestinians and foreign activists, is by no means an exhaustive history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, nor does it provide sufficient context on the subject matter at hand. Settlers interviewed, for instance, continually paint the Palestinians as exclusively of the Muslim faith and their conflict as only religious. Theroux doesn’t mention the tens of thousands of Palestinian Christians who have also been victimised.
With so much of the story left out, people are angry on both sides. In a column about the film, Jake Wallis Simons writes in The Jewish Chronicle: “What could have possessed the BBC to make a documentary about the very worst Jews they could find?”
But if Simons has a problem with the film – a film that also interviews Jewish voices for peace who are against the settler actions – perhaps he should recognise that he is the audience, too. This is a film for everyone of all faiths and backgrounds. This is fearless journalism that calls the world’s attention to actions that have the potential to make Israelis and Palestinians less safe – which would reverberate far beyond those two communities.
Because of Theroux’s standing as a national treasure in the UK and his BBC platform, this film has the chance to change hearts and minds around the world. The only people who should worry about that are those whose aims do not value the lives at stake.
