{"id":6239,"date":"2025-05-10T19:50:49","date_gmt":"2025-05-10T17:50:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/?p=6239"},"modified":"2025-05-10T20:08:15","modified_gmt":"2025-05-10T18:08:15","slug":"theroux-film-israel-settlers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/2025-05-10\/theroux-film-israel-settlers\/","title":{"rendered":"Theroux&#8217;s film on Israel&#8217;s violent settlers was a mirror. Resist the calls to look away"},"content":{"rendered":"<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-6240\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/MV5BYTBiZjUyOTEtZmM4MC00NTQyLTk4ZGItNWE5YTczNjUxNGMyXkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"520\" height=\"293\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/MV5BYTBiZjUyOTEtZmM4MC00NTQyLTk4ZGItNWE5YTczNjUxNGMyXkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_.jpg 520w, https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/MV5BYTBiZjUyOTEtZmM4MC00NTQyLTk4ZGItNWE5YTczNjUxNGMyXkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 520px) 100vw, 520px\" \/>\n<p class=\"subtitle\"><em><strong>For once, the BBC aired a documentary showing Israeli society&#8217;s dark underbelly. The backlash is not because Louis Theroux got it wrong. It&#8217;s because his film tells us far too much about ourselves<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Louis Theroux explains in a commentary published by the Guardian today why the backlash to his recent film about violent, Israeli state-backed settlers misses the point.<\/p>\n<p>His critics say he is unfairly presenting a few marginal \u201ccrazies\u201d in Israeli society, who rampage across the West Bank to drive out the native Palestinian population, as significant and influential.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s exactly what they are, Theroux responds.<\/p>\n<p>Settler leader Daniella Weiss, who Theroux spent much time following and interviewing, \u201cenjoys enormous clout within the Israeli cabinet and \u2026 has the protection of the army in her project of settler expansionism\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>He quotes Haaretz journalist Etan Nechin in noting that the setters\u2019 \u201crepresentatives are literally sitting in the government and control everything from the police to treasury\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Theroux makes a further point about why it is important to focus on the settlers and understand what they really represent.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A film about extreme West Bank settlers isn\u2019t simply about a region of the Middle East. It\u2019s also about &#8216;us&#8217;,&#8221; he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2025\/may\/10\/louis-theroux-documentary-on-israeli-settlers-in-the-west-bank\" rel=\"\">writes<\/a> in the Guardian.<\/p>\n<p>He adds: \u201cThe urgency here is that West Bank settlers are a bellwether for where society may be going in countries across the west\u2026 Around the same time that the documentary aired, Israel\u2019s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who is a settler, was being hosted at [Donald Trump\u2019s] Mar-a-Lago.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-media-max-width=\"560\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">one of the few benefits of Musk giving me the blue-check without having asked for it is that I can post long videos, so here&#8217;s the full Louis Theroux documentary on the genocidal Zionist Israeli settlers and their pathological death-cult mania: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/oNV2mc3U6w\">pic.twitter.com\/oNV2mc3U6w<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 \u2600\ufe0f\ud83d\udc40 (@zei_squirrel) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/zei_squirrel\/status\/1917008203402932419?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 29, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>There has been a backlash to Theroux\u2019s documentary \u2013 just as there is continuing support for Israel, even as it commits what the International Court of Justice deems a \u201cplausible genocide\u201d \u2013 precisely because those extremists are &#8220;us&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The gun-toting, stone-throwing, orchard-burning, house-torching settlers are from Texas, London and Paris. And so are many of the soldiers \u2013 some of them <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2025\/4\/7\/uk-lawyers-accuse-10-britons-who-fought-for-israel-in-gaza-of-war-crimes\" rel=\"\">volunteers from western countries<\/a> \u2013 who are currently slaughtering and enforcing the starvation of children in Gaza.<\/p>\n<p>It is \u201cus\u201d watching this genocide unfold in slow-motion and shrugging our shoulders, or both-sidesing the stream of constant Israeli crimes on our screens. It is \u201cus\u201d still sending weapons to make the genocide possible. It is \u201cus\u201d decrying the protesters marching against the genocide, against the starvation of babies, as \u201cantisemites\u201d, \u201chaters\u201d and \u201csupporters of terrorism\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Israel&#8217;s crimes didn&#8217;t begin 19 months ago. They date back a century or more. They began with Britain&#8217;s sponsorship of an exclusive Jewish enclave imposed on the Middle East \u2013 a colonising state-to-be that was always going to require the containment and ultimately the expulsion, or extermination, of the native, Palestinian population.<\/p>\n<p>That process had nothing more to do with \u201cJewish control\u201d then than it does now. After all, it was an arch anti-semite, Arthur Balfour \u2013 Lord Balfour \u2013 who wrote the infamous <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Balfour_Declaration\" rel=\"\">Balfour Declaration<\/a> in 1917 promising a Jewish state on the Palestinians&#8217; homeland. He was supported by the entire British cabinet \u2013 apart from Edwin Montagu, the only Jewish government minister, who rightly <a href=\"https:\/\/britainpalestineproject.org\/edwin-montagu-and-zionism-1917\/\" rel=\"\">lamented<\/a> Britain\u2019s support for a Jewish state in Palestine as evidence of his countrymen\u2019s enduring antisemitism.<\/p>\n<p>Why were Balfour and the other government ministers so keen to have \u201cthe Jews\u201d in the Middle East?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/britainpalestineproject.org\/evangelicals-the-balfour-declaration-and-zionism\/\" rel=\"\">Religious reasons<\/a> played a part, to be sure. But more important were all-too practical, foreign policy objectives.<\/p>\n<p>First because, like other governments driven by ethno-nationalist sentiment that was then running riot in European capitals, the British government preferred that \u201ca Jewish state\u201d, dependent on Britain, would project its interests as a British colony in the oil-rich Middle East.<\/p>\n<p>If Britain didn\u2019t seek to promote and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.haaretz.com\/opinion\/2017-10-25\/ty-article\/.premium\/balfour-promised-lebanon-and-jordan-to-the-jews-too\/0000017f-db97-d856-a37f-ffd7ef0e0000\" rel=\"\">harness a European Jewish presence<\/a> in the region first \u2013 to weaponise those Jews against \u201cthe natives\u201d \u2013 France or Germany might do so instead.<\/p>\n<p>It was a race between European powers for regional control. Though ultimately, of course, they were beaten to the finishing line by the United States, which has been Israel\u2019s main patron since the founding of a so-called \u201cJewish state\u201d through the mass ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people in 1948.<\/p>\n<p>The crimes Israel carries out today were engineered \u2013 made inevitable \u2013 by the decisions western powers took from the early twentieth century onwards.<\/p>\n<p>Which is why Theroux is right that we in the West are responsible for Israel&#8217;s actions in a way that is entirely untrue of Burma or China or Russia.<\/p>\n<p>Israel&#8217;s supporters want us looking away from Israel&#8217;s crimes to Burma\u2019s, China\u2019s or Russia\u2019s precisely because Israel is \u201cus\u201d. Its state terrorism is ours.<\/p>\n<p>If the Israel fortress colony falls, so the fear goes, the West&#8217;s system of colonial power projection \u2013 those 800-plus military bases the US has stationed around the world in its bid for &#8220;global full-spectrum dominance&#8221; \u2013 will begin to unravel with it.<\/p>\n<p>Israel is still secretly viewed by the West \u2013 by \u201cus\u201d \u2013 as it was by the father of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, 130 years ago: as &#8220;a rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Those cheerleading Israel\u2019s genocide, or staying complicity silent, are the ideological inheritors of Lord Balfour and his ugly racism.<\/p>\n<p>Either they wish for \u201cthe Jews\u201d to complete the takeover of historic Palestine \u2013 exterminating or ethnically cleansing what is left of \u201cthe natives\u201d \u2013 as a public flexing of \u201cour\u201d muscle, as a demonstration of who controls the world, of what awaits anyone who defies \u201cour\u201d might.<\/p>\n<p>Or they have been so brainwashed by a fearmongering western narrative that the world is divided into two \u2013 and only the western half is actually civilised \u2013 that the slaughter and maiming of many tens of thousands of Palestinian children and the starvation of a million more seems a reasonable, even moral, response to the state of the world.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The soldiers raided my house today, they wanted to revenge from me for participating in the <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BBC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@BBC<\/a> documentary \u201c the settlers\u201d , after the army left the settlers raided my house, they injured one activist and cut the tree, they stole tools and the garbage containers.<br \/>\nThe Israeli\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/jYYYlr2XyS\">pic.twitter.com\/jYYYlr2XyS<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Issa Amro \u0639\u064a\u0633\u0649 \u0639\u0645\u0631\u0648 \ud83c\uddf5\ud83c\uddf8 (@Issaamro) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Issaamro\/status\/1918722495273640412?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 3, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Yes, the West\u2019s Jewish populations have been more easily sold on this preposterous notion because, given their history of western persecution, they are more easily persuaded to live in a state of permanent fear, they are more readily convinced by establishment narratives that there are exceptional reasons to support <em>this<\/em> genocide.<\/p>\n<p>But \u201cour\u201d leaders are no less in thrall to this kind of perverse logic. They gain their positions only after they have been fully initiated into an institutionalised system of power that requires fealty to western \u2013 chiefly US \u2013 projection of dominance across the globe.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever Starmer\u2019s personal feelings (assuming he has any), the fact is he is not wrong in proclaiming that his government is in no position to impose a sales ban on the components for F-35 fighter jets, the ones dropping bombs on Gaza\u2019s population to level their homes and shred their children.<\/p>\n<p>As his government implicitly acknowledges, the West\u2019s system of arms production is necessarily so tightly integrated that no one, apart from the central hub of empire headquartered in the US, is in a position to change course. The West\u2019s arms industries, just like its financial industries, are simply too big to fail.<\/p>\n<p>Britain is locked in to producing F-35 components not specifically because Israel needs them, but because the West \u2013 because the US \u2013 needs them for its projection of power, for its continuing control of resources, for its global dominance \u2013 or, in the British government\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/politics\/2025\/jan\/31\/judicial-review-uk-f-35-jet-parts-to-israel-judge\" rel=\"\">bogus rhetoric<\/a>, to safeguard \u201cNato security\u201d and \u201cinternational peace\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Were Starmer to dare to refuse, it would be no different from some local, small-time mafia boss telling the Don in Washington to take a hike. The British prime minister knows his fate would be straight out of a <em>Sopranos<\/em> script.<\/p>\n<p>This too is the reason why he has been secretly shipping weapons to Israel for use in Gaza \u2013 more than <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dropsitenews.com\/p\/uk-israel-munitions-shipments-palestine\/comments\" rel=\"\">8,500 items<\/a> \u2013 in violation of the promise he made to the British public last year that the shipments had stopped.<\/p>\n<p>While Starmer has to placate those in his party who cannot stomach being complicit in genocide, he also has to keep the Don happy. And the Don is far more dangerous than either Starmer\u2019s party or the British parliament.<\/p>\n<p>Theroux\u2019s film, <em>The Settlers<\/em>, is a vanishingly rare example of popular documentary-making showing Israeli society\u2019s dark underbelly. The backlash is not because his thesis is wrong. It is because it tells us far too much about ourselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For once, the BBC aired a documentary showing Israeli society&#8217;s dark underbelly. The backlash is not because Louis Theroux got it wrong. It&#8217;s because his film tells us far too much about ourselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6240,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17,7,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-6239","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-bbc","9":"tag-israel-lobby","10":"tag-settlements"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6239"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6245,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6239\/revisions\/6245"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}