The response to The Settlers has been humbling. But the ongoing displacement and intimidation of Palestinians is more severe than we could capture
It wasn’t something I saw coming. A film about the situation in the West Bank – an evergreen story if ever there was one – going viral. Appreciation, dismay, gratitude, outrage at what the film showed … Through the week it kept going. More retweets, more feedback, a little bit of pushback. Shock was the theme of many messages – the idea that this was going on. And a feeling of: “At last.” “At last, mainstream British TV is saying something about what is happening.”
The film was a follow-up of sorts. In 2010, I’d made a documentary called Ultra Zionists. It was a look at the Israeli religious nationalist community that exists in the West Bank – the area across the eastern edge of Israel that has been under military occupation since the six-day war of 1967. Now, a decade and a half on, with the world’s attention on Gaza, it was being reported that the settlers were ramping up their activities. The Israeli government had given them thousands of assault rifles. Shootings of Palestinians, vandalism of their property and harassment were all on the rise.
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