Entrenched views on show in bleak look at West Bank

Fourteen years after first visiting illegal Israeli communities in Palestine, Louis Theroux returns in The Settlers’ to find hostility and tacit government approval.

- Phil Harrison

The evolution of Louis Theroux as a documentary maker has been fascinating to observe. Back in the 1990s, he specialised in knowing winks to camera, deploying a mixture of charm and carefully calibrated haplessness to gain the confidence of his subjects. Usually, these weren’t particularly serious people – but even if they were, he tended to undermine them by accentuating their absurdity. White supremacists, for example, or Christian nationalists, weren’t seen as much more than fodder for mockery back then.

So much for those innocent, flippant times: Theroux is older and wiser and, in any case, has been hunting for bigger game for some years now. He first visited Israeli settlers in the Palestinian West Bank back in 2011. Even then, it wasn’t a situation that invited levity in any way.

His return in BBC Two’s Louis Theroux: The Settlers uncovers an even bleaker modern reality. A decade and a half ago, the people he met felt like outliers. His original documentary was called Ultra Zionists, a title that told its own story. Now, this oncefringe group are represented at the very heart of the Israeli government: Israel’s current minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, is seen on a stage during this film, whipping up the crowd. In the aftermath of the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, this is their time.