'BBC's The Settlers is Louis Theroux at his best showing humanity at its worst'

Daily Mirror

09-05-2025

Documentary-maker Louis Theroux takes the divisive Israeli settlements in Palestine as his subject. Amnesty International describe the crisis as a 'genocide', while an interviewee in The Settlers says it is 'normal'
Veteran documentarian Louis Theroux is famed for his particular brand of quiet and quizzical looks as interviewees speak themselves into a corner. He's covered everything from Joe Exotic to interviews with Rita Ora. But this new documentary The Settlers is different: Louis challenges his interviewees, namely ethno-nationalist grassroots leader Daniella Wiess, also known as 'the godmother of settler movement.'
The Settlers, which is available on BBC iPlayer, is a revisiting of the subject explored in a previous Theroux documentary The Ultra Zionists (2011). Speaking to the BBC, Louis says of this recording that since the attacks in Israeli where hostages were taken by Hamas on October 7, that "these religious nationalist settlers have been emboldened to go further, to push harder, to harass their Palestinian neighbours and to attempt to drive them out."
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While viewing The Settlers there is an infused knowledge that this is, by Amnesty International's measure, a genocide. These candid conversations with Israeli settlers come cloaked with the life and deaths occurring in Gaza. It is not everyday that I review a piece that comes with a ticking-death toll that has been ever-increasing since October 7th, 2023. But here we are. At time of writing this, the death toll is more than 50,000, as reported by the BBC.
The documentary opens with a scene of tourists, standing at the border of southern Israel, looking on through binoculars towards Gaza, as smoke billows in the wake of explosions that have decimated the area. Louis, in an interview to the BBC about this episode, said that filming felt like being "immersed in a dystopian movie".
While the documentary focuses on the West Bank, the view is outward towards Gaza too. The West Bank was occupied through war in 1967, and since then Israeli settlers have lived illegally under international law.
The settlers documented on the show see the war on Gaza as an opportunity. At one rally, Louis says that "families are being enlisted to be part of this whole project of putting hundreds of new families, new settlements, in Gaza literally as it's being bombed."
Another Israeli group protested this event, calling for a ceasefire and for a return of the hostages taken by Hamas on October 7. A spokesperson for the group said: "The idea of resettling in Gaza is absolutely ridiculous. The question is: what kind of country do we want to be? Do we want to be a coloniser country? Or do we want to be a country that at least offers peace and wants to live in peace with Palestinians? That has to be what we strive for."
But this strife for peace is not always a given. In an interview with the BBC, Louis says: "What is taking place is, by any reasonable person's assessment, deeply troubling."
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Settler Daniella Weiss is at the heart of the film. Weiss, by her own admission, has been involved in 'almost every one' of the settlements in the West Bank over the previous fifty years. Louis asks her: "Because it is territory that was won in the '67 war, under the Geneva Convention, transferring a civilian population into a conquered terrain that is considered a war-crime." Weiss responds: "It's a light felony."
At the close of the episode, Louis and his camera crew are documenting another rally organised by Weiss. She denies the existence of settler violence, and instead argues that this is a perception created by videos circulated on social media not showing the full picture. To illustrate this, she shoves Louis.
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Here marks, for me as a long time viewer of Theroux's work, a stark moment; there is a noticeable change in approach. Weiss, in an attempt to reason that her approach is just and right, says: "I think about: I'm a Jew. I'm a settler. I'm a human being."
But Louis says: "Thinking of your own people to the exclusion… it would be understandable to think of your own people or your own children first, but to think about other people, other children, not at all, that seems sociopathic, doesn't it?"
A little ripple of a smile comes over Weiss's face as she tells him: "Not at all. This is normal." In a haunting scene, she walks away, quipping back that she wished Louis had shoved her back.
In Louis's words, this is "extreme ideology delivered with a smile." I've watched hundreds of journalist reports and documentaries, and The Settlers is heart-breaking. As a historical document, this film is worthy of a BAFTA for its contribution to our collective understanding of a continually unfolding humanitarian crisis in Palestine. This is Louis at his best showing humanity at its worst.