Tom Pollitt is a British journalist based in Cairo, Egypt. Visit his Substack: pollittbureau.substack.com.
In June, the Israeli government announced plans for 22 new settlements in the West Bank—its most aggressive expansion in years—setting the backdrop for legendary British documentarian Louis Theroux's return. Following his first BBC film on Israeli settlements in 2014, "The Settlers" revisits these communities at a moment when their ideology increasingly dominates Israeli politics.
Amid the horrors of Israel's ongoing extermination campaign in Gaza, it is easy to overlook the West Bank's escalating violence and dispossession. But de facto Israeli annexation is rapidly advancing. Israel has killed around 1,000 Palestinians since the Oct. 7 attacks. A policy of colonization and overt pressure forcefully displaced over 20 Palestinian communities in 2024 to make way for new illegal Israeli settlements.
Around 700,000 Israeli settlers live in over 200 settlements throughout the occupied territory under Israeli military protection. They live under Israeli civilian law while Palestinians are subjected to Israeli military rule—a reality condemned as apartheid by leading human rights organizations in Israel and abroad.
That context makes Theroux's documentary crucial. His approach is subtle, allowing subjects to speak freely—thus revealing themselves and exemplifying the documentary's damning nature. One of his early conversations with Ari Abramowitz, an American-born settler who moved from Texas to Israel at 16, speaks to this approach:
Abramowitz: "If you say the 'Palestinian territories,' you are essentially saying that this, right here, is going to be a jihadist, Palestinian state—right in the heart of Israel."
Louis Theroux: "But why jihadist? Couldn't it just be a Palestinian state?"
Ari Abramowitz: "OK, to understand the Arab way of thinking—they understand, 'There's a war.' They win the war if they get territory. They lose the war if they lose territory."
Theroux: "You could flip that and say, 'Well, that's what, in a sense, you're doing.'"
Abramowitz: "That's what I aspire to do. That's what I aspire to do."
Abramowitz goes on to refer to Palestinians as a society driven by "genocidal, theological bloodlust," declaring Israel's imperial role as "the tip of the spear, fighting the battles of America and defending the entire Western world."
"I don't have tremendous compassion for a society that has an unquenchable, genocidal, theological bloodlust."
Amid the horrors of Israel's ongoing extermination campaign in Gaza, it is easy to overlook the West Bank's escalating violence and dispossession. However, de facto Israeli annexation is rapidly advancing.
- Tom Pollitt
In a classic Freudian projection, Abramowitz's main conclusion is blunt: Palestinians should be erased from the map on the assumption that they collectively desire the same outcome for Israeli Jews. "We must declare sovereignty over all of Judea and Samaria [the West Bank], and over Gaza, and to settle Gaza and all of Judea and Samaria with Jews," he goes on to argue.
A 2024 Pennsylvania State University poll discovered sweeping Israeli support for such sentiments. Nearly 82% of Israeli Jews support the forced expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza. More than half—56%—support expelling Palestinians from Israel-proper. Nearly half agree with the biblical model of conquest, emulating the Israelites at Jericho—killing every inhabitant of captured cities along ethnic lines.
Among settlers, support for these measures is higher. Settler polling in the West Bank and Gaza is currently sparse, but in 2020, half of Jewish Israelis believed that Israel should fully annex the West Bank. The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found in 2024 that 42% of Jewish Israelis support West Bank annexation without equal rights for Palestinians, with only 21% supporting a two-state solution—the lowest since the early 1990s. Given their harsher views on annexation, a substantial majority of West Bank settlers likely support annexation.
Indeed, what has changed since Theroux's first visit to the Occupied Palestinian Territories is the boldness in which settlers proclaim such aspirations. In "The Settlers," Theroux visits a nationalist jamboree on the Gaza border, where a crowd gathers to celebrate what they hope will be Gaza's future settlement and annexation. The documentary captures them on platforms replete with telescopes for their families to watch their country destroy the Strip.
An American-Jewish attendee explains the group's thinking: "Where we don't settle, terror grows."
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel's far-right national security minister, spoke at the event. Once a marginal figure convicted of inciting racial hatred and affiliating with Jewish terrorist organizations, he is now a central figure in Netanyahu's cabinet. Ben-Gvir used his speech to call for the complete expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, while his supporters espoused to Theroux that only Jews have a divine right to the land.
Daniella Weiss—lauded by her peers as the godmother of the settler movement—organized the event. In "The Settlers," Weiss boasts to Theroux that she helped found nearly every major settlement in the West Bank. "We very much encourage and enable the population in Gaza to go to other countries," she tells the crowd.
"You will witness how Jews go to Gaza and Arabs disappear from Gaza!"
Theroux confronts Weiss with the accusation that transferring populations into conquered territory is a war crime. She laughs: "It's a light felony." She also reveals her close coordination with Netanyahu's aides: "We do for governments what they cannot do for themselves."
"Netanyahu is very happy with what we are doing here and also about our plans to build Jewish communities in Gaza, but he cannot say it."
Through his work, Theroux puts a spotlight on the leaders of a movement that not only supports Palestine's ethnic cleansing, but outright genocide. Their followers act in-kind, with one Israeli protester blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza offering a particularly horrid conclusion: "You have to kill their offspring because it prevents them from making more offspring."
- Tom Pollitt
Theroux's crew also captured a speech by Rabbi Dov Lior, a prominent religious extremist previously arrested for incitement. With Weiss at his side, Lior pronounces: "There never was peace with these savages…this land belongs only to the people of Israel. All of Gaza, all of Lebanon should be cleansed of these 'camel riders.' Whoever runs away, good on him."
"Whoever doesn't, we'll encourage him to do so," he concludes.
Lior and his colleagues speak at length of plans to move 800 Jewish families into Gaza. Noticing the film crew, the rabbi asks: "Are these journalists? I have lost trust in them." They are then told to stop recording.
Lior's statement speaks to the importance of "The Settlers." Through his work, Theroux puts a spotlight on the leaders of a movement that not only supports Palestine's ethnic cleansing, but outright genocide. Their followers act in-kind, with one Israeli protester blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza offering a particularly horrid conclusion: "You have to kill their offspring because it prevents them from making more offspring."
Such genocidal rhetoric is no longer shocking. Israel continues to experience a protracted effort to erode any semblance of liberal democratic thought or institutions—an ongoing issue for years stemming directly from a politics of occupation and apartheid. With a far-right government in power, one no longer deny Israel's fascistic descent.
Theroux's documentary does not editorialize this reality because it does not need to do so. Rather, he uses language associated with international legal consensus, referring to the West Bank as illegally occupied Palestinian territory, in line with the United Nations, the International Court of Justice and leading human rights organizations.
In doing so, he offers a quiet act of defiance, especially amid self-censorship across media organizations reporting on Israel and Palestine. Theroux's BBC is no exception. A separate documentary, "Gaza: Medics Under Fire," was mysteriously withheld for release by the BBC. It was finally released months later in early July 2025, after the U.K.'s Channel 4 and the online platform Zeteo acquired the rights. The BBC itself has yet to release any of the material.
As a government-funded broadcaster, the BBC has a duty to inform the public through trusted sources—not to shield one party instituting a brutal occupation. "The Settlers" meets that standard. It offers no surprises to those familiar with the facts. Rather, its value lies in its reach. Theroux's calm, unflinching lens exposes what many prefer not to see.
Western governments—particularly the United States—continue to bankroll and shield Israeli actions. But their ability to do so depends on citizen ignorance or apathy, sustaining the occupation. Documentaries like "The Settlers" matter because, in a quiet way, it helps tip the balance.
