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In 2010, the documentary maker Louis Theroux visited the busy West Bank to meet Jewish settlers who had moved to Palestinian territory in violation of international law. In the 14 years that followed Ultra Zionists Friends, the number of settlers has increased to more than 700,000: approximately one tenth of the whole Jewish population of Israel. The violence against the Palestinians and their displacement by the settlers also increased in annual shift – reaching unprecedented levels following the attacks of October 7 against Israel by the terrorists of Hamas in 2023, and the war which followed in Gaza.
With the tensions rising and the settlers embraced by the far -right coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Theroux now returns to the region for a new BBC film The colonists. A powerful documentary and completely discouraging an hour, it focuses on the members and the figures of the radical Zionist movement and their efforts to increase their presence and consolidate their position in the West Bank.
In an improvement in its predecessor, the film also offers a Palestinian perspective. The colonists Underlines how expansionist ideologies shape the daily reality of certain people who live under military occupation which imposes fundamental rights in order to protect establishments considered illegal under international law. Theroux approaches his frank subjects but kept with his usual brand of false naivety and well -hundered questioning style which invites those interviewed to reveal the extent of their opinions and to expose their hypocrisies.
Conversations with Daniella Weiss, the so-called “godmother” of the Settler project, exhibit both a fervent fanatic and a frightening blasé attitude towards the Palestinians. When Theroux suggests that her plea for the removal of the Palestinians of the West Bank would be defined as a war crime, she laughs before proudly showing plans for the reinstallation of Gaza. Another colonist, a Jewish-American man named Ari, does not see the irony of the Palestinian brand image a “cult of death” while he wanted to grasp a rifle and plead in favor of ethnic cleaning.
After all these years, there is not much that can shock Theroux, but it is obviously incredulous and irritated when Israeli soldiers try to interrupt and intimidate it while it document the restrictions imposed on the Palestinians in cities with colonon enclaves. In Hébron, where Theroux meets the Palestinian activist Issa Amro, he testifies to the first hand how strictly the residents are strictly controlled and the little freedom they have to cross or make business through the FDI control points.
Although the film draws attention to the frictions that intensified outside a news cycle dominated by the conflict in Gaza, it may be too centered on individuals and marginal extremists. The narrow objective makes it difficult to shed light on the heavy policy of the region. A comment from Weiss on the support of the government outside the record for its proposals is alarming but left largely unexplored; An overview of the Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir delivering a speech during a rally of settlers comes with little context on the way in which a man formerly condemned for “incitement to racism” came to light the policy.
However, it is a lucid documentary on a dark situation that we fear that we are still playing in 15 years. A brief scene representing pro-peace activists trying to protect producers from Palestinian olive trees from settlers and soldiers gives at least the slightest hope of an alternative.
★★★★ ☆
April 27 at 9 p.m. on BBC2 and Iplayer later
