If you are shocked by my films about Israeli settlers in the West Bank, you did not care Luis Thirox

INothing I saw is coming. A film about the situation in the West Bank – a evergreen story if there is one – a viral walk. Appreciation, panic, gratitude and anger than what the film showed … during the week continued. More tweets, more comments, little decline. The shock was the subject of many messages – the idea that this happens. And a feeling: “finally.” “In the end, the prevailing British TV says something about what is happening.”

The film was a kind of kind. In 2010, she made a documentary called Ultra Zionists. It was a look at the Israeli nationalist community in the West Bank-the region through the eastern edge of Israel, which was under military occupation since the six-day war in 1967. Now, after a decade and a half, with the attention of the world in Gaza, it was reported that the settlers were increasing their activities. The Israeli government gave them thousands of attack rifles. The shooting of the Palestinians, and the sabotage of their property and harassment was high.

We imagined the film as a kind of films on the road through an area under military occupation. On two flights for a few weeks, with the managers of Josh Baker and producers Sarah Obaidat and Mattan Cohen, she traveled up and down in the West Bank. It has achieved success in the settlers ‘community, where she conducted an interview with the foundations of the settlers’ mentality. People like Arugot Farm, a tourist resort sitting deep in the occupied West Bank. Abramovich was born and raised in Texas, but he came to Israel when he was a young man, eligible for Israeli citizenship because of his Jewish heritage. In our interview, I met me wearing an offensive rifle and pistol. He took me on a tour of the ground and announced his point of view that the Palestinian people are “not present.”

I also spent time with Daniela Weiss, and women are often described as “Arab” project. Weiss, 79, is working to expand the Israeli presence in the West Bank-or Judea and Samer, as it calls it-for more than 50 years, the pressure of governments, the collection of funds locally and internationally, and encouraging a vision of the Israeli region that revolves around it, while pushing the Parins to accept it or leave.

Weiss hosted me in her suburban style in the Kedumim settlement, amid family books and photos. She explained to me a map on its wall, and explained that Lebanon, Jordan, parts of Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iraq were all part of Greater Israel. The settlement process indicated to create more settlement outposts than religious Israelis. Under international law, the transfer of civilian population to the occupied territories is a war crime, as I said. This is fun. I mentioned that the elements of the Israeli security apparatus looked at its activities with dismay and criticized the extremist settlers for their participation in what they called “Jewish terrorism”. I ignored all this.

We saw her at work on an event that promotes the idea of ​​Jewish settlements only in Gaza-the latest border in the activity of the settlers. In a fiery speech, it announced that the Palestinians in the region need to leave and go to other countries – to Türkiye, to Canada – anywhere else. On another visit on the Gaza border, I brought a prominent rabbi, Dov LIOR. With the ruins of smoking behind him, he talked about the need to “cleanse” the land of “camel passengers”. In the meeting that made the closing scene of the film, Wais had a hot exchange of views on the top of the hill in EvyATAR, the latest settlement to be recognized by the Israeli state.

Throughout the shooting days, wandering at the checkpoints, the walls of the previous explosion, the towers of the guards, the olive orchards, and the Palestinian cities, I thought about my previous visit 14 years ago. Many were still the same. The same feeling of two levels: the Jewish settlers who lived protected under the Israeli civil law; The Palestinians who were subject to the unusual military government, with the closure of roads and made life difficult in large and small ways. Daily insult to waiting lists and examination of passports. Fear of settlement sabotage and intimidation.

The reaction to the movie, when it was broadcast, was instantly. Positive writing and enormous online comments. Some reviews believed that she had discovered a new “seriousness” in my approach. They pointed to a moment when Daniela Weiss told her views that seem “social” – after she suggested that she was only interested in the luxury of her people and did not think about others. I was said to have looked more assertive than usual. I’m not sure if this is true. But I believe that the seriousness of what is revealed gave the meeting more influential.

Some pieces were criticizing the movie. The main charge was that I focused on a handful of madness who were not representatives of the wider society. References in the Daily Mail wrote: “Weiss is a rift.” In X, the environment scientist conservative Ben Goldsmith claimed that extremists in the movie “represent a margin in Israeli society … about … accuracy of representation for everyone because Tommy Robinson is the UK community.”

But this comparison reveals what makes the situation in the West Bank very strange. In the UK, Robinson is widely seen as a margin representative. He was excluded from politics and avoided by those close to the government. However, a situation with a similar figure has a tremendous influence within the Israeli cabinet and has the protection of the army in its expansion project for the settlers. “Their representatives are literally sitting in the government and controlling everything from the police to the cabinet,” said Haritz Aitan Nishin, in response to Goldsmith.

Others asked why I did not mention that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living under occupation in the West Bank are already refugees – or their grandchildren – after they were expelled from the land they lived in in 1948 when the state of Israel was established. Now they face a second displacement, with the settlers – and the elements of the Israeli state – are pushing for more deportations and continuing to make life unbearable for the Palestinians.

It was part of the analysis that was less explicit but there is an idea in the background, “Why does Israel choose?” -The idea that the atrocities of similar seriousness occur in other parts of the world and that by reporting the Israeli religious nationalist extremism, we may have contributed to the anti -Jewish feelings. I am dealing with this charge seriously, for reasons that I hope it is clear.

But the urgency here is that the settlers of the West Bank are from the bell to the place where society may be in countries throughout the West. In the past, the settlers’ agenda has been supported by governments on both the left and the right, but is currently adopted by populist leaders and extremist right elements who like many about their ethnic sexual character and combating democracy. Almost at the same time, which was broadcast by the documentary, the Israeli National Security Minister, ITAMAR BEN-GVIR, is a settler, in Mar-A-Lago. Thus, a film about the settlers of the West Bank is not simply about the Middle East. It is also about “we”.

Although the global response to the settlers was mainly encouraging, there is an aspect of its aspects. “This film does not tell us anything new about the situation in the occupied West Bank.” The facts were well known to those who noticed-starting from any other land of the Academy Award, to our land: the other Israel war, a documentary that includes unusual scenes of settlers who control agricultural lands and make veiled signals to intimidation and displacement.

One of the sad and most charged results of our film included Palestinian activist Issa Amro. Amr has lived in Hebron, which is the city of West Bank, since 1968, which has 700 settlers or so living in its heart, in a collar of the Israeli military occupation. We photographed amro on a picnic during this alleged “sterile” region-the term used by the army. A few days after the film was broadcast, Issa told social media that he was harassed by settlers and soldiers at his home, while it seemed to take revenge for his participation in our documentary. Our team communicated with him and did his best to provide appropriate support.

The researcher and writer Hamza Youssef Ali X said that the anger at all that is shown in the settlers. As I am proud of the movie, I know that our documentary cannot capture the full impact of what is revealed in the West Bank. The reality of displacement and harassment is often more extreme than those I have seen.

So I am grateful for the reaction. I encourage people to read and consume more on this topic. I am happy that we were able to show as much as we did. I also hope to appear much more.

• Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you want to provide a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered to be published in our messages section, please click here.