No Other Land & Louis Theroux: The Settlers
Films & TV
“Both these documentaries are essential viewing as you let your own moral compass be your guide. These films deliver crystal-clear perspectives through microcosms of the ongoing decades-long situation of Indigenous Palestinians being ethnically cleansed at gunpoint from their ancestral homelands in the occupied West Bank. It is happening right now,” says Jonathan Sargeant from St Francis College as Nakba commemorations approach on Thursday 15 May
Please be aware that this content contains references to military occupation and killing.
In our Australian context, not a day goes by without reference in the national press to our current housing crisis. An undersupply of accommodation, Kosciusko-high prices for rentals and a history of failed policy that has inevitably inflated the cost of housing means none of us are untouched by this. We all know someone affected. As Australians this puts us in the perfect space to be sensitised to human needs for housing.
We find this situation hard. However, imagine a situation where an occupying force of armed soldiers might, at any time, decide to bulldoze our houses and schools, chainsaw our powerlines, pour cement from a truck into our only water supply, arrest us without charge, harass us until we flee or stand by and protect gun-wielding Israeli civilians as they shoot us unarmed in front of our children? There would be an immediate international outcry, wouldn’t there?
This is the picture painted with devastating precision in two documentaries showing different aspects of such atrocities happening right now in the West Bank, Palestine.
No Other Land, released in 2024, won the Oscar for Best Documentary at this year’s Academy Awards and rightly so. The landmark film follows Palestinian journalist Basel Adra over five years filming his home village of Masafer Yatta being gradually destroyed by the Israeli military occupation in the ways described above. Through the cinema verité of his lens we see the swagger of the soldiers who declare the area conveniently zoned as a military training area, thus requiring families to evacuate — that is, to be ethnically cleansed from their homeland. We see invading civilians toting machine guns ordering women and children out of their houses. We see what happens when these demands are challenged, even peacefully — adults and children are beaten or arrested and tried before a military court. One young local, clinging to his generator being stolen by so-called Israeli settlers under the protection of Israeli soldiers stand idly by, is shot in the stomach. He survives as a quadriplegic and must live in a cave, cared for by his mourning mother, who prays that God will take her son because she has no way to relieve his agonising pain. Other shootings are also captured on camera. These are not fleeting news stories, but the lives of people we follow in the documentary.
Increasing the tragic sense of these years is the growing friendship between the filmmaker and his co-director Yuval Abraham. Yuval is an Israeli, yet he sees the actions of the government and the illegal Israeli “settlers” with clarity. As the years roll by, the two grow close, sharing their lives in the dark, lit by torches and makeshift lights. The contrast between the ways each is treated by the Israeli soldiers is astonishing. Basel with a camera is threatened and his father is kidnapped by the soldiers because of it. Yuval, on the other hand, is tolerated, though soldiers cannot understand why he would be interested in this village and the Palestinians who live there.
Underneath this we see two men with a deep mutual respect, confounded by the world around them. Despite the repressive, invasive ideology of the illegal “settlers” and Israeli government, friendship is possible. This dynamic elevates the horrors of No Other Land. Is there a glimmer of hope? Maybe. But not while the world, including too many faith leaders and the mainstream media, largely looks in the other direction.
Louis Theroux: The Settlers is a follow up to a similar documentary Theroux made 15 years ago. This recently released 60-minute film sees the situation from the “settler’s” point of view. Theroux is well known for his particular filmic style where the interviewer is as much a part of the story as the interviewee. From time to time, this approach has drawn criticism. Some viewers have accused Theroux of not doing enough to criticise, for instance, the white supremacists he interviewed for a previous film set in the Unites States. But his approach then is the same now — he asks simple questions, in an often-disarming way, allowing the protagonists to reveal the truth and horror behind their words and actions.
As Theroux converses with a number of Israeli “settler” militias, including veteran far-right “settler” leader Daniella Weiss, you hear the contempt they have for Palestinians — they are unable to refer to Palestinians as human beings.
For these “settlers”, their perceived right to steal land from Indigenous Palestinians in a program of ethnic cleansing, is in their mind undeniable and anyone with a contrary view is simply laughed off. That Weiss smirks about her regular connection with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s staff shows the alignment of the “settler” expansion and the Israeli government’s military occupation. For most Israelis, these “settlers” are not some aggressive, militant minority as they have sometimes suggested, but an essential strategy of the state and have been since the Nakba (or “catastrophe”), when the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian homeland began in 1948.
Theroux’s effectiveness here is that he allows the “settlers” to make admissions. While all documentary work has an element of construction, here the viewer is enabled to make up their own mind. While I am drawn to the films of Michael Moore (Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11) their polemical approach can sometimes leave an audience feeling a little browbeaten. Theroux, whilst always present, is never lecturing. He is clearly affected by what he is hearing, but in that sense he is a proxy for the viewer, rather than a preacher.
Currently with the highest possible rating of 100 per cent on film-reviewing site Rotten Tomatoes, No Other Land, humanises a military occupation that can sometimes feel a world away. The Settlers is perfect for those wanting to hear Israeli “settler” rationales directly from their mouths.
It is worth noting that both these films have been criticised by some with particular agendas, especially those who are unable, or unwilling, to see the influence of the United States in foreign policy. Having viewed these documentaries and subsequently feeling motivated to do considerable research in the area, I find such critiques entirely unfounded. For instance, criticising the actions of a nation state and its government — in this instance Israel — is not the same as criticising the religion — in this instance Judaism — that a nation state privileges at the expense of those who practise other faiths, in this case Christianity and Islam. Last year’s International Court of Justice ruling and the subsequent United Nations General Assembly resolution are unequivocal: “Israel [is] to comply with international law and withdraw its military forces, immediately cease all new settlement activity, evacuate all settlers from occupied land, and dismantle parts of the separation wall it constructed inside the occupied West Bank.”
Both these documentaries are essential viewing as you let your own moral compass be your guide. These films deliver crystal-clear perspectives through microcosms of the ongoing decades-long situation of Indigenous Palestinians being ethnically cleansed at gunpoint from their ancestral homelands in the occupied West Bank. It is happening right now.
To host a screening of No Other Land (MA), directed by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, visit The No Other Land Australian website.
Justice Unit note: St John’s Cathedral and the Palestine Israel Ecumenical Network is hosting a Q&A panel discussion with Christian, Muslim and Jewish community leaders on Wednesday 21 May 2025 between 6.30pm and 8pm at St John’s Anglican Cathedral. The panel discussion will be followed by supper. Panellists include Suzan Wahhab, President of Palestinian Christians in Australia; Omar Ashour, Palestinian from Gaza and the former President of Falesteen Inc; and, Sophia Duckor Jones, a Jewish woman and refugee advocate. Money raised will go to the Anglican-run Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza. Register online to attend.
Editor’s note: If you are interested in learning more about film, the arts, and the many intersections with life, faith and social justice, Jonathan Sargeant is teaching DA2013Z God and Contemporary Culture: Theology and the Arts on Monday evenings in 2025. Please contact Jonathan Sargeant for more information via jonathan.sargeant@anglicanchurchsq.org.au.
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