Louis Theroux forces Britain to face uncomfortable truth of Israeli settler barbarism
30 April 2025
Starmer’s Britain
is colluding with the illegal settler barbarism and land theft laid out
so skilfully in Louis Theroux’s masterful and consciousness-changing
documentary
Settlers fire at Palestinians while Israeli soldiers stand by in Huwwara on 13 October 2022 (AFP)
In February, the ultra-right Spectator magazine launched a sudden and unexpected hatchet job on filmmaker Louis Theroux.
The magazine, edited by former cabinet minister Michael Gove, told
readers: “Theroux is once again making a film about Jews in Judea and
Samaria - the region known as the West Bank - focusing on so-called
‘settlers.’”
Spectator writer Jonathan Sacerdoti presumably used these scare
quotes to signal scepticism about the mere use of the word “settler”.
He then laid into Theroux’s previous film on Israeli settlements, The Ultra Zionists,
released in 2011. He described it as a “documentary criticised by some
for cherry-picking the most extreme and controversial voices from the
settler movement to create a caricature of violent, religious fanatics.
Many felt it ignored the historical and security-driven reasons behind
Israeli settlement policies, overlooked the very real threats posed by Palestinian terrorism, and failed to present any real balance.”
For good measure, Sacerdoti also launched an attack on Theroux’s
wife, Nancy Strang, on the basis that her views on Israel “appear to be
anything but impartial”.
The Spectator’s pre-emptive strike was followed by a chorus of attacks in Britain’s right-wing press. According to the Telegraph, whose reporting on Israel cannot be described as remotely impartial, the Theroux film is “surplus to requirements”.
The Daily Mail accused
Theroux of a “deep streak of cynicism”, adding: “His interviewees are
carefully chosen, to reinforce the BBC narrative that Israelis are the
oppressors and Palestinians their victims.” The knives are out for Louis
Theroux.
Supported by the state
All three papers attack, directly or by implication, the BBC. They
argue that Theroux has set out to attack Israel by picking on a fringe
group of extremists and that, in the words of the Telegraph, “moderate
Israelis regard the settlers as a national embarrassment”.
The argument that settlers are a fringe movement is based on an
invincible ignorance that is wholly characteristic of mainstream British
media when it comes to Israel. The West Bank settlers who Theroux
chronicles in his film are supported in every conceivable way by the
Israeli state.
Their numerous crimes against Palestinians are rarely prosecuted. In
parts of the occupied West Bank, the settlers and security forces have
effectively merged. Theroux’s documentary provides a vivid case in point
when he finds himself trapped with a group of Palestinians under
assault from settlers.
These settlers enjoy full civil rights, along with other government
benefits, including soft loans. Meanwhile, Palestinians have virtually
no rights at all, having been subject to a system of arbitrary military
government since 1967.
This is why all serious human rights organisations, including Israel’s B’Tselem, call Israel an apartheid state.
This ought to have political consequences. Why hasn't Britain
sanctioned settler leaders Itamar Ben Gvir, Smotrich and many others?
The settler movement is today more powerful than ever before. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing Likud Party’s founding charter declares: “Between the sea and the Jordan [River] there will only be Israeli sovereignty.”
In other words, it makes an explicit claim to Israeli ownership of
more and more land in what Israel now regularly calls Judea and Samaria.
Likud is moreover in coalition with two settler parties: the Religious
Zionists and Jewish Power.
Bezalel Smotrich, head of the Religious Zionists and a self-proclaimed fascist,
is also the finance minister and civil administrator across the
occupied West Bank. For the last two years, there has been a surge in settlement activity - and associated settler violence - across the territory.
The suggestion made in mainstream British newspapers that Theroux has
cherry-picked a group of weirdos in order to stigmatise Israel carries
zero credibility.
Savagery understated
Note, however, that this film tells us nothing new about the
situation in the occupied West Bank. Theroux’s art is to allow the
settlers themselves to set out their ethno-nationalist programme in
their own terms, explaining their inhumanity and racism in their own
words. The settler project is there for all to see.
Theroux tells us nothing that every diplomat, human rights expert and
journalist who bothers to do the research has not known for years. What
Theroux has done - and three cheers to the much-criticised BBC for
screening this film - is to bring the moral horror and savagery of the
settlements to a much wider audience. Thanks to his work (along with the
outstanding and wrongly overlooked new ITV documentary Our Land), ordinary people have seen with their own eyes what the settlements are like.
From time to time Theroux pulls his punches. He fails to use the term
apartheid, even though that is exactly what he is showing the viewer.
He understates settler savagery. Take his account of the Evyatar
(translation: “God is Great”) outpost overlooking the neighbouring
Palestinian village of Beita.
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The Settlers: Louis Theroux takes an unflinching look at the Israelis intent on stealing the West Bank
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While he does show the shrine of the brave American-Turkish activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, shot dead last year by an Israeli sniper, he makes no mention that before her assassination, 15 Palestinians had already died struggling for their land in the same village in recent years. One was a 41-year-old water engineer, Shadi Alshurfa, shot dead while dealing with the village water main.
Still, Theroux’s achievement is profound. His film enables a much
wider understanding that Israel’s barbaric settler-colonial project is
incompatible with the much-vaunted proposition that Israel shares
western values and is the “only democracy in the Middle East”.
This ought to have political consequences. Why hasn’t Britain
sanctioned settler leaders Itamar Ben Gvir, Smotrich and many others?
How on earth does Prime Minister Keir Starmer get away with claiming
that Israel is not an apartheid state? Why does his government refuse to recognise a Palestinian state?
It is also high time that Starmer told his foreign secretary, David
Lammy, that Britain must insist Israel follow the International Court of
Justice (ICJ)’s provisional ruling in the ongoing Gaza genocide case. Britain has not bothered to responded to the ICJ’s landmark affirmation last summer that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is illegal. Why not?
Meanwhile, Britain has not even followed the example of Canada in sanctioning Daniella Weiss,
the gruesome settler leader and ethnic cleansing enthusiast who
features so largely in BBC and ITV films. Many Britons will wonder why
not.
As matters stand, Starmer’s Britain is colluding with the illegal
settler barbarism and land theft laid out so skilfully in Theroux’s
masterful and consciousness-changing documentary.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.