For almost a year and half now, the pens of truthful journalists have been hard at work detailing and describing the horrific events of the Israeli genocide still unfolding in Gaza to this day. Through this time however, this genocide has expanded beyond the borders of the besieged enclave.
Due to the eyes of the world being drawn to the scenes of murder and mayhem committed on an hourly basis by the Zionist regime and its barbaric army, media attention on the new revival of the settler movement in the West Bank and across the occupied territories could not find a strong perch to stand on.
The Zionist regime, in full force, and with explicit support from the settler community, began a widespread campaign to finish what they started in the West Bank decades ago, expanding settlements using impassioned, and heavily armed, Zionists of different countries. With the settlers taking on the responsibility of living their lives on the frontier in tents, camps and caravans, and occasionally wave guns or call in the army against Palestinian olive farmers. Meanwhile, the Zionist government showers them in military protection, approved permits for settlements illegal under international law, and sponsors their celebrations and festivals with special appearances from Knesset members and ministers.
Alternative media has tried its best to cover this subject, but only a few have managed to bring to the table the raw unfiltered image of life in the West Bank under this new settler regime. None however, take into account both the perspectives of Palestinian victims and the ugly truth voiced by prominent figures in the settler movement.
That is until Louis Theroux, a prominent British American documentarian returned to the West Bank 15 years after his visit in 2010 to spotlight how that burgeoning movement has now turned into the “tip of the spear” the Zionist government uses to forward its aspirations of full territorial control in his new documentary titled “The Settlers”.
The hour-long feature documentary exposes the Israeli violence driving the displacement of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
The Witch
In 2011, Theroux released a documentary titled the “The Ultra-Zionists”, in which he interviews several settlers and influencers of the settler movement including Daniella Weiss, who is currently the most prominent and most out-spoken proponent of the movement, even trying to push for the resettlement of Gaza.
Weiss has been advocating for settler expansion since her younger years in 1992 and even before, her being a settler from Warsaw, Poland. Weiss started her life in occupied Palestine in a caravan in a settlement she calls “Kedumim”. Today, that caravan became an almost mansion-sized suburban household, and Kedumim a highly developed settlement surrounded on all sides by military might.
A clip from “The Settlers” features a young Daniella Weiss touring her own settlement and speaking up about her aspirations for full settlement of the West Bank.
For anyone watching the documentary, Weiss would seem like the main character of the story Theroux is trying to tell, almost 20 to 30 minutes of the documentary include scenes featuring conversations with her. Throughout these scenes we get to know the real Daniella Weiss, because as much as Theroux tries to maintain his signature objectivity and blank facial expressions in the face of her extremism, his emotional neutrality eventually cracks in the face of the monster lurking behind the sinister smile she always flashes him.
In this next clip, Daniella responds in brief to a comment by Shin Bet Chief Ronin Barr regarding his opinion about the settler movement, while regaling Theroux with loud boasts about how powerful she believes herself to be.
Proudly resting on the table in front of Weiss is a map pointing out all the illegal settlements she helped build and maintain throughout her career.
In only 50 seconds or so worth of conversation with an unknown variable such as Theroux, Weiss makes almost half a dozen claims about her ever-growing influence on the coming generation and the government, signaling that in her mind the project she and her rich European family first began almost 50 years ago would live on forever past her own dwindling number of years. Kind of reminds you of another certain “artistic” imaginative scenario.
In this next clip, our resident witch summons the aid of an elder sorcerer, Rabbi Dov Lior, to cast a spell of spiritual suggestion on a collection of wealthy Jewish settlers in the hopes that they would financially support settlement efforts in Gaza.
Theroux captures the scene of a very racially charged speech by an older Rabbi, before being forced by the masses to back away alongside his cameraman.
From day one, Daniella’s ambitions never ended with the West Bank. If she were to attain immortality, her first and only goal then on would the establishment of “Greater Israel”.
The “Warrior”
But enough talk about the modern-day version of Baba-Yaga, we have other characters to discuss in this fireside tale. The next one in line seems to fancy himself as the “Conan the Barbarian” of the settler movement, but unlike the titular hero of immense strength and combat prowess, portrayed by the likes of his fellow US citizen Arnold Shwarzenegger, Ari Abramowitz is, in comparison, simply a bundle of anxious nerves living under the illusion of mortal danger.
From the very first minutes of his arrival on camera, and to the very end, Abramowitz’s assault rifle slung across his back almost 100% of the time makes a more impactful description of his character than his own words do. Especially since I don’t believe he has ever used it in defense of himself, his family, his community or anyone else, and that’s not just my own analysis, he admits it himself.
In the following clip, Abramowitz takes Theroux into his settlement’s synagogue and explains why his M4 Carbine has an express ticket to be anywhere around the settlement, even in a holy place of worship and reverence. All the while, he paces and shifts on his own two feet like a cornered animal.
To the ignorant observer, Abramowitz would seem like a frontline fighter, a defender of the people or something, at least that observer would perhaps assume that he’s been in maybe a couple gunslinging scuffles.
Abramowitz goes on an impassioned speech about the ‘nation of Israel’ and how his gun is key to keeping that ‘nation’ alive.
It’s very clear that Abramowitz here is simply dying for a reason to use the fully-automatic death machine behind his back, why its customary for Americans to wanna try out their toys, especially in Texas where our wanna-be warrior hails from. Unfortunately for him, he came to the occupied territories expecting to be surrounded by highly experienced Palestinian “Jihadi infiltrators” looking for any opportunity to knock down his settlement door and knife him in his sleep. Instead, he got peaceful olive farmers and sunbaked laborers to vent his Texan anger on.
In this next clip, Abramowitz proudly demonstrates the ignorance most settlers suffer from whenever the topic of Palestinians or Arabs comes to the table, immediately deferring to what Zionist ideology demarcates them as.
When Theroux asks about the nearest Palestinian town from Ari Abramowitz’s favorite view of his “homeland”, he takes it a little too personal.
The selective reading of history that Ari Abramowitz regales us with does not come from his own mind, but instead from rigorous Zionist teachings that he was fed on when he was but a young lad fresh out of high school and joined an Israeli educational program called the “Gap Year Program”. The program ships American Jewish high school graduates to the occupied territories and gives them a taste of life on the Zionist frontier.
Forasmuch as Abramowitz believes in the words he was fed, he gets to continue living his “Wild West” fantasy of a life on the frontier.
In his final clip, his gun again appears as the star of the show, as for the second time he hosts Theroux, he simply cannot avoid meeting him looking as militant as he can, an adjective he denies can be used to denote him.
With the assault rifle carefully placed on display, Ari Abramowitz retorts to Theroux’s question with a barrage of ‘heroic’ honorifics denoting the settler movement.
A few moments before Abramowitz began his speech, as he was making coffee for himself and company, Theroux probes candidly whether Ari Abramowitz simply wears his gun and military attire “just for effect”. Abramowitz, dressed like an occupation soldier with the rifle still firmly attached to his spine, denies that allegation.
“I don’t know what effect I’m looking for, do I just wanna look militant? No, it’s not just for effect”.
Of course, it’s not just for effect, because when Abramowitz looks at himself in the mirror while dressed like that, his eluded mind probably draws the portrait of a holy crusader or paladin, if you will.
In short, Abramowitz here is a classic American story. See, for a long time now, around 50 years back, Hollywood made stories of Wild West cowboys the stuff of legend on the silver screen. Those images of handsome strong men twiddling revolvers have made it into the minds of every man, woman, and child in the US of Empire.
Ari Abramowitz here? He’s just one of those boys, harkening back to the olden times of American expansionism across the western plains which was (no surprise there) done in the exact same style as the settler movement in the West Bank is doing today.
When it comes to Abramowitz, he is simply a symptom of a greater disease, the disease of the “American Dream”, that has swept across the entire world in full force.
And Abramowitz? Well, he’s quite the dreamer.
The Olive Picker
To provide a small reprieve from extreme characters, here we have one as far as Theroux’s story goes, falls in the very middle. Kobe Sneetz is a Mathematician and long-time Israeli activist for Palestinian rights.
Normally, the secular wing in ‘Israel’ is not always considered an ally of the Palestinians, regardless of the voices amongst them that decry the oppression against their ‘Arab neighbors’, for those voices are either muted by the majority, or simply not loud enough.
Kobe Sneetz is interviewed by Theroux as a group of occupation soldiers, called in by surrounding settlers, question and harass the landowners he was picking olives with but a moment ago.
But Sneetz seems to be an exception, because not only has he experienced what “40% of Palestinian men” experience throughout life under Zionist occupation, being arrested and detained, but he also seems a humble enough man to join his ‘neighbors’ for their seasonal olive picking. Something rarely seen in the occupied territories, as even the most secular ‘peaceful’ Israelis usually live separate lives from their Palestinian neighbors.
The way Kobe Sneetz calmly explains to Theroux what is about to happen, suggests that this is not the first time he has been in such a situation. In fact, his very deflated tone of speech suggests he’s seen it unfold almost a hundred times.
Into the Woods
In this next clip, Theroux encounters two masked “bridge trolls” as he accompanies Issa, a Palestinian man brought up in East Al-Quds (Jerusalem), as they traipse around the many areas now freshly restricted to native Palestinians for the purpose of keeping settlers “safe”.
The Bridge Trolls pretend the masks they wear are simply for the cold, Issa has another opinion, however.
This clip is only a few minutes worth of the journey Theroux has with Issa, but it adds much needed depth to the situation he tries to portray.
A Moment of Clarity
This clip of Daniella Weiss summarizes the main point of Theroux’s story quite perfectly.
Daniella Weiss, the witch of many contradictions, seeks to prove the peaceful nature of her settlers…with violence.
The humor in this scene is almost palpable on its own. Humanity has always found contradictions a thing of comedy, but there is nothing funny about what Daniella seeks to achieve at the cost of Palestinian lives and at the behest of her genocidal ideology.
In conclusion, Louis Theroux’s The Settlers pulls back the curtain on the brutal reality of Zionist expansion in the West Bank, exposing the ideological fervor and state-backed violence driving the displacement of Palestinians.
Through unsettling interviews with figures like the Witch and the “Warrior”, the documentary reveals the settlers’ sense of entitlement, their militarized fantasies, and the systemic erasure of Palestinian life. Meanwhile, voices like Kobe Sneetz and the oppressed Palestinians offer a sobering counterpoint—proof of resilience amid relentless occupation.
Theroux’s work is a vital indictment of settler colonialism, forcing the world to confront the violent machinery behind Israel’s territorial ambitions. The question remains: How long will the international community watch in silence? And, while this reality stands to prove their inefficacy in world affairs; How long will our own Lebanese government and “forces” that side with it continue to look for them for solutions to an enemy that only speaks in the language of Daniella Weiss.
Source: Al-Manar English Website
