You and Whose Army?

Louis Theroux’s recent BBC documentary The Settlers has focused international attention on an alarming reality: that state-backed settler violence in the West Bank has reached unprecedented levels. Though Gaza’s devastation dominates headlines — and deservedly so — the West Bank faces its own existential crisis. Communities there are enduring a systematic campaign of displacement through violence that has accelerated dramatically with explicit government support.

The events of 7 October served as a catalyst for settler violence in the West Bank. Though such aggression has been a constant reality for Palestinians living under occupation, it now unfolds with broader institutional support and alarming frequency. 

Since 7 October, the West Bank has experienced an average of four documented incidents of settler violence per day. What was once portrayed as fringe extremism has been fully absorbed into state policy. The infrastructure enabling settler expansion has long been in place, with the Israeli military historically prioritising settler interests over Palestinian rights. Today, the line between security forces and settlers has dissolved almost entirely.

Under the leadership of Israel’s Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, thousands of firearms and items of combat equipment have been distributed to settlers, effectively creating a civilian militia operating with state sanction. These newly armed settlers don’t merely receive protection during their violent incursions into Palestinian communities — they are actively integrated into Israel’s security apparatus. What was once dismissed as extremist excess has become the operational norm.

No Other Land But Palestine

Theroux’s documentary exposed the depraved ideological underpinnings of the settler movement, and drew criticism from some quarters as a result. Yet the filmmaker’s international profile affords him protections unavailable to Palestinian journalists and documentarians. 

This disparity was illustrated when Hamdan Ballal, co-director of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, was assaulted by settlers and subsequently detained by the Israeli army mere weeks after standing on the Academy Awards stage. Even the prestige of an Oscar offered little protection; co-director Yuval Abraham later revealed that the US Academy initially declined to publicly support Ballal during the ordeal.

Despite the international recognition brought about by No Other Land, too, homes continue to be demolished, and state-sponsored violence against Palestinians in the West Bank is unabated. Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal persist in their documentarian efforts, bearing witness to their community’s erasure, driven by a persistent hope that they might one day live in dignity and free from the grip of occupation.

There is a bitter irony here. While Palestinian filmmakers receive standing ovations in Hollywood for documenting their community’s struggle, the situation on the ground has worsened. This contradiction exposes the hollow nature of international recognition when faced with the relentless machinery of displacement. Even as the world has briefly turned its gaze toward Masafer Yatta, bulldozers continue their daily destruction.

‘Not In Our Name’

In the predawn hours, a group of young Jewish activists gather to accompany Palestinian children to school — a necessary precaution since armed settlers have previously attacked and obstructed children on their way to school, demonstrating that harassment extends to even the youngest Palestinians.

Others prepare cameras to document potential settler attacks or military incursions. Some will join the few remaining shepherds in the hills, providing a protective presence as flocks graze on lands increasingly threatened by settler expansion. This is daily fare for members of organisations like the Centre for Jewish Non-Violence, one of the organisations helping to ensure that there is now a constant activist presence in villages like Umm Al-Khair.

‘Israel says it’s doing what it is in Gaza and here in my name, because I’m Jewish and because they want to maintain a Jewish homeland,’ says Jenna Fischer, who has spent three months living with Bedouin families in Umm Al-Khair. ‘Everything I have learned from being Jewish says that this is not the way that you treat people, and that we can do better.’

Fischer’s motivation springs directly from her Jewish upbringing. ‘I find Tikkun Olam — “repairing the world” — to be one of the most important aspects of what I’ve learned from Judaism, and that means living with our neighbours in peace.’

The presence of Jewish activists serves multiple purposes in communities under threat. They document violations that might otherwise go unrecorded, provide witnesses who can sometimes deter the worst violence, and demonstrate to Palestinians that not all Jews support Israel’s policies.

‘There are many reasons why I think it’s important for Jewish activists to be here,’ Fischer explains. ‘One is so that I can meet Palestinians who might have not met other Jews who support Palestine, so they can see that Israel does not represent all of us. That’s particularly important to me.’

But perhaps more crucial is the role these activists play as messengers back to their home communities. ‘I go home in about a week and I will be telling people about what I’ve seen,’ Fischer says. ‘I’m a first-hand witness to what’s been happening here for three months and I’ve seen the atrocities and the inhumane treatment of Palestinians.’

Her commitment extends beyond this initial stay. ‘I want to come back — because I want to see my friends again, but also because when I leave, it’s not over. These issues are still happening. And I find it really important both as a commitment to the community [here and] to the Jewish community that I continue this work.’

A Stolen Heritage

For generations, shepherding has been at the core of Bedouin identity in the South Hebron hills. Every man in the village carries memories of walking alongside his father with their flocks, learning the way of the land and the animals — a sacred inheritance passed down through centuries. Now, this cornerstone of Bedouin life has become another battleground in the struggle for existence.

‘We are Bedouin. Bedouin means that we are dependent on shepherding, and on animals. This is our wealth, and this is our way of life, and our way of work.’ explains Ali Hathaleen, a 24-year-old former shepherd from Umm Al-Khair.

Since 7 October, many Bedouin families have been forced to sell their animals — a devastating economic and cultural loss. Their sheep are stolen by settlers with impunity, while Palestinians face harassment when attempting to graze their remaining flocks. The military increasingly restricts access to traditional grazing lands, forcing shepherds to purchase expensive feed, an unsustainable economic burden that has driven many to abandon shepherding altogether.

Before 7 October, despite decades of occupation after the 1967 war and the establishment of the Carmel settlement in 1980, shepherding offered a rare sense of freedom and connection to the land. ‘When you go with the sheep, really, you just think about your sheep, feeding them, and nothing else,’ reflects a resident of Umm Al-Khair who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals. ‘When you go with the sheep, your thinking is clear. You don’t think about the other stuff in life.’

This limited freedom has now been stripped away. Settlers have begun to appropriate Bedouin shepherding traditions — not in order to preserve them, but to weaponise them as tools of displacement. While Palestinians face severe restrictions on movement and grazing access, Israeli settlers deploy shepherding strategically to claim and control territory. 

‘They bring shepherds and they’re training them to get near the communities, to steal land,’ Hathaleen explains. Settler shepherds deliberately bring their flocks into Palestinian agricultural space, destroying crops and livelihoods while establishing de facto control over territory. The military consistently protects these incursions, while criminalising Palestinian shepherding on the same lands their families have used for generations.

For Bedouins in Umm Al-Khair, this represents a double dispossession — they lose not only their livelihood but their cultural heritage too, and they are forced to watch it being used as a tool against them by their oppressors. ‘I don’t have any words to describe what I feel,’ Hathaleen says quietly. ‘It’s so hard for us. Lose your land, lose your freedom, lose your sources of life. It’s so hard. I cannot describe these things.’

In the evenings, the men of Umm Al-Khair sometimes reminisce about the relative freedom they felt before 7 October, when they could still take their sheep to graze. These conversations rarely last long. For many Palestinians, it is too painful to contemplate the past, when the struggle for immediate survival consumes their day so completely.