Do you want to show where we are right now? Cos I think
we're quite deep inside what are called the Palestinian territories.
What you call the Palestinian territories.
I call it the heart of Judea. If you say the Palestinian territories,
you're essentially already saying that this right here,
right here is going to be
a jihadist Palestinian state
right in the heart of Israel. Not only in the heart of Israel,
we're talking about, like, the biblical... But why Jihadist?
Why do you say Jihadist?
Why couldn't it just be a Palestinian state?
OK, to understand the Arab way of thinking
that they understand, there's a war.
They win the war if they get territory.
They lose the war if they lose territory. You could flip that
and say, "Well, that's what, in a sense, you're doing."
That's what I aspire to do. That's what I aspire to do.
This programme contains scenes which some viewers may find upsetting
and language which some may find offensive
Beyond the eastern edge of Israel
is the Palestinian territory of the West Bank.
It was occupied in war by Israel in 1967.
Since then, hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers have moved here,
illegally, under international law.
Among them, a group of religious nationalists
who see it as their divine right to build a greater Israel...
..and drive out the Palestinians who've been here for generations.
I made a film about them in 2011.
But now, since the attack of October 7th, I'd heard
that they were accelerating the settlement process...
Why you filming me?
..while being protected by the Israeli military.
I'd come to try to understand their mindset
and to see the consequences of their ultra-nationalist vision up close.
They don't see us as equal human being
who deserve the same rights they do.
I was close to Israel's southern border.
At a viewpoint, tourists were surveying the ruins of Gaza.
The Palestinian death toll at this point was more than 43,000
and rising,
in a war that had commenced a year earlier,
after Hamas gunmen attacked Israeli communities,
killing more than 1,000 and taking hundreds more hostage.
UPBEAT MUSIC
Now, with bombs falling nearby,
settlers from across the West Bank were holding a jamboree
to promote the idea of putting new Jewish outposts in Gaza,
with workshops offering practical advice,
while a vanguard made their case in front of the world's media.
How are you doing? Louis. Nice to meet you. What's your name? Orit.
Orit. And why are you here today? To show support
and that I believe that Gaza's ours and that we need to be living there.
To those Palestinians who'd say, "Well, we'd like to live
"in a Palestinian state," what do you say?
The Bible says this place was given to the Jews. This place is ours.
Ours meaning? It's a Jewish state.
What's your name? Aaron. Aaron. Nice to meet you. Louis.
Where are you from? I'm from Hebron. And before that?
Until I was nine years old, lived in New York
and then my parents made Aliyah to Israel.
We're here to call our government to go and settle Gaza.
We're here because we have a right to be here.
Our right to be in this land is the Torah, is the godly promise.
Where we don't settle, terror grows.
Among the attendees were many senior political figures,
including Israel's Minister of National Security.
APPLAUSE
CHEERING
CHANTING
In his youth, Itamar Ben-Gvir
had been convicted of incitement of racism.
He is himself a settler.
But in a sign of the changing times,
he now sits in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Presiding over the event was the godmother of the settler movement,
Daniella Weiss.
Daniella, this is your event, isn't it?
Tell me about what this is. No, no, no, not now, not now, not now.
Ten words. No, no, no. Not...
Not now, not now...
SHE CHUCKLES
We, the settlement movement,
organised this event
in order to enhance
the practical idea
of establishing
Jewish settlements in the entire Gaza Strip.
We very much encourage and enable
the population in Gaza
to go to other countries.
You will witness how Jews go to Gaza
and Arabs disappear from Gaza.
They lost the right to stay in this holy place,
please God. Thank you very much.
APPLAUSE
CHANTING AND WHISTLING
From up on a nearby hill, there came the sound of protesting.
An Israeli group demonstrating for a ceasefire
and the return of hostages taken by Hamas.
What are you doing here?
I think the idea of resettling Gaza is absolutely ridiculous.
The question is what kind of country do we want to be?
Do we want to be a colonising country,
or do we want to be a country that at least offers peace
and wants to live in peace with the Palestinians?
That has to be what we strive for.
I'd been hoping for a moment with Daniella,
but then came a warning of a possible rocket attack
and the event was quickly evacuated.
Let's grab the cameras and let's go.
For Jewish settlers, Gaza is the latest frontier
in a process that's been unfolding for decades across the West Bank.
A region of not much more than 5,000 square kilometres,
the West Bank is home to around three million Palestinians,
most of them living in large cities
with limited autonomy under the Palestinian Authority.
The Israeli military occupied the area in the Six-Day War in 1967.
Since then, hundreds of thousands of Israelis
have moved in to form settlements...
..hoping to expand Jewish presence in the region,
or simply looking for cheap housing.
Often, they start out as a few tents or caravans,
pitched by ultra ideological settlers on hilltops
next to Palestinian towns.
These are known as outposts.
They are illegal under Israeli law
until they are authorised as settlements.
But both settlements and outposts are illegal under international law.
The army, nevertheless, protects them.
Hello. How are you?
Everything's great. Where are you from? London, England. Oh, nice.
Where are you from? Russia. Russia!
Most settlements tend to be suspicious of media.
But I'd managed to get an appointment at one, called Evyatar.
It had started out as on outpost
on the edge of the Palestinian town of Beita.
It was only recognised as a settlement by the Israeli state
a few months earlier.
Hi, there. Good morning. Good morning. How are you?
I'm fine. How are you doing? You must be Malkiel. Yes, I am.
I'm Louis. How do you do? I'm fine, thank you.
Thank you for having us. Thank you for coming.
One of its founders is horse-wrangler Malkiel Bar Hai.
All right, so let me show you a bit about Evyatar.
Um, I'm just going to have to ask you not to take any films
of the army base. That's where they're sitting.
So there's an army base there? This is an army base.
That's where the dormitories are.
Really? And this is a house, there's people living here.
The army base is for your security? For all the region's security.
Uh, the story about Evyatar, this was a hilltop.
We started from day one living in tents,
and by the end of the month,
we were 50 families living here in these houses.
All of these houses were built back then.
Coming from where? All over the country.
Shall we go inside? All right.
It is a little untidy.
This is where you're living at the moment? Yes.
This is our humble home.
This is our living room, our kitchen.
Um... How many children do you have?
Eight. Four boys and four girls.
Wow. Behind here we have another kids' room.
This is the girls' bedroom.
Two older girls, 13 and 11. They sleep here.
And over there, this is the laundry, bathroom and a shower.
So where do you stay? Mum and Dad.
This is me and my wife. You and your wife are in there.
If it rains? Yeah, if it does rain, so we go into the small caravan.
Hopefully we'll finish building the house before winter's here.
Do you enjoy being out on the frontier
where it's a bit more rough and ready?
Where there's more uncertainty?
Our mission is to settle Israel,
new settlements all over the country.
So most of the world sees this as the West Bank,
as occupied territory. It's under a military occupation.
Correct? Like, it's not part of the state of Israel,
as most nations recognise it.
The ancient name of this area is called Judea.
The meaning of Judea is it belongs to the Jews.
Mm-hm. So you can't take all the history,
put it in the garbage and say, "OK, it's not belong to the Jews."
The history said it belonged to the... To Israel.
With a selective reading of history that ignores the Palestinians
who have lived on the land for generations,
the aim for settlements like Evyatar is to become full-fledged towns,
guarded round the clock by soldiers,
walled off from the millions around them.
The godmother of the settler project,
going back more than 50 years,
is the woman I'd seen at the Gaza border event, Daniella Weiss.
I want to see big cities here,
like a city of two million people.
So, it's not a settlement. A settlement is caravans,
it's trailers, it's a home here and a home there.
This is not what my dream is about.
The trailers in that video of Daniella
have now grown into the settlement of Kedumim, where she still lives.
Hi.
UNTRANSLATED RESPONSE
Supported by some in the Israeli government,
Daniella's viewed by others in power as a dangerous extremist.
She'd agreed to talk to me at home.
Shalom, shalom. Nice to see you.
So we've got pictures of you as a young woman.
Is the one of you getting married, is that the oldest one?
This is when we got together.
I was then 15 or something.
Your parents were from...?
My mother was born in Warsaw.
My parents came here and invested fortunes,
believing that some day there will be a Jewish state. Mm-hm.
With their vision and their faith,
I continue to expand the Israel
and to be as close as possible to the Promised Land.
This is your map.
So this is what most of the world knows as the West Bank,
which you call Judea and Samaria.
This is what you call occupied West Bank.
And what the Palestinians would like to see
is a future state of their own.
No, they are not satisfied with this. But complicated issue.
These little pink wedges, what do they represent?
The Jewish communities
that were established since 1967.
I'm curious to know roughly how many settlements and outposts
you've been, let's say, in some way involved in the establishment of?
Almost every one.
For real? It's 50 years. Mm-hm.
You know what it means? 50 years that I do what I do today.
Because it's territory that was won in the '67 war,
under the Geneva Convention, transferring a civilian population
into a conquered terrain, that's considered a war crime.
What I do here is a war crime?
According to the UN. And you're cooperating
with the person who committed war crimes?
Well, I'm interviewing you.
SHE LAUGHS
It's a light felony.
I'd read a couple of things suggesting that you were viewed
as an extremist and possibly sympathising with Jewish
or Israeli terror. The confrontation is not over terror.
The confrontation is just on whether, yes or no...
..we stay here. There's a quote.
"So alarming is the situation."
It's talking about the situation of settlers
and what they describe as settler extremism and violence.
"Last week Ronen Bar, the head of Israel's security service,
"wrote to Netanyahu, the Prime Minister,
"and the Defence Minister warning that what he called Jewish terror
"by violent settlers was doing indescribable damage to Israel."
The reason Ronen Bar says that I'm extremist
has nothing to do with terror.
Whatever I represent
threatens his peaceful,
secular life.
I have nothing to do with terror.
He knows I have nothing to do with terror,
and he insists on saying it.
It's a lie.
And he knows that it's a lie.
Does that really explain... He doesn't like me! Mm-hm.
Because I have a lot of influence. Much more than he has.
Influence over who?
The young generation that is growing in Israel.
And government, too? And government what?
Do you have influence over government? No question.
Who did all this?
Can you call Netanyahu?
SHE CHUCKLES
What do you mean? Like this?
Mm-hm. No, I call his aides.
So the idea is to force the government
by putting people, it starts with small settlements,
then they get bigger, then they get recognised by the state of Israel
and basically creating a new demographic reality.
We do not force a government.
We do for governments what they cannot do for themselves.
Um, even if you take Netanyahu now,
he is very happy with what we do here and also about our plans
to build Jewish communities in Gaza.
He is happy about it, but he cannot say it.
He says the opposite.
"It's not realistic."
Good!
We will make it realistic.
It's not forcing the government.
It's helping the government.
It's step number one in politics.
You don't force the government.
You give the government the courage, the ability, the public support,
the political support.
I think you understand what I said, even if you disagree.
There was something unsettling
about hearing Daniella's ethno-nationalist vision
being laid out so plainly, especially when I considered
the support she claimed to have from some in power.
With their backing,
the settlement project has accelerated,
with many of those going to live in West Bank settlements
coming from other countries.
Anyone from anywhere in the world with Jewish heritage,
since they qualify for Israeli citizenship,
can live in a settlement.
Have you ever been to Judea?
Well, consider this an invitation, because I could try to describe it
to you in words, but it would just be impossible.
Ari Abramowitz was born and raised in Texas.
He now helps run Arugot Farm,
a small retreat hosting birthdays, weddings and corporate events,
often catering to tourists.
The farm was established as an outpost in 2014 -
illegally, according to international law -
on land deep inside the occupied West Bank.
Hi.
We're going to Arugot Farm.
Thank you.
HORN TOOTS
HORN TOOTS AGAIN
Are you Ari? I am. There you are.
How are you doing? Good to meet you. Welcome, welcome.
Nice to meet you. You as well. Louis. Louis. Louis? Yes.
Lewis, Louis. Louis. Yes. Or Lewis. I don't mind too much.
Welcome to Judea. How are you doing? You've come armed.
I d... But we're so friendly. I know how it looks. I know.
I know, it's not true.
So this is our synagogue.
And I remember when I first came here,
I wanted to build my house here. And then I learned that,
according to Jewish law, you build the synagogue on the highest place,
which makes sense.
What, my home is going to be lording over the synagogue?
That wouldn't be right.
These are the Torah scrolls.
Is it weird to have your guns on in here?
No. My gun is here to protect the nation of Israel
from those that seek to harm us.
And during a service, would you typically wear them?
Yes. Is it that dangerous?
It is until it's not.
Thank God, never had any issues of infiltrations here.
And I think it's because they know that we're...ready for it.
How old were you when you came to Israel?
I think I was 16. When you moved here?
I came here after high school to study Torah.
It was supposed to be a few months. It's called the gap year programme.
Mm-hm. When you breathe the air, when you taste that,
when you feel mission and passion in life,
you can't... You can't go back.
This is where I choose to come and pray
with the creator of heaven and earth.
I think this is the most beautiful place in the world, right here.
Where's the nearest Palestinian town?
I'm so uncomfortable using the word Palestinian
because I don't think that it exists.
You don't think they really exist?
I don't think that they exist as a real nation
with a real claim to this land.
What are they, then? They are... They're Arabs.
With a connection to this land? Yes, they have a connection to it.
It's nowhere near the depth and...
I mean, we were in this land planting vineyards
before Muhammad was in the third grade.
Is that a settlement there?
That is a Jewish settlement called Pnei Kedem.
Pnei Kedem. Which means facing the east.
"Face to the east."
Would that be considered legal under Israeli law? I don't know.
You don't really care. I don't, I don't care at all.
At all. I don't care at all. Um, I mean... Why don't you care?
This land here in the heart of Judea,
there's some things that transcend the whims of legislation,
and this is one of those things.
For millions of Palestinians up and down the West Bank,
the presence of settlers makes life precarious.
They live under Israeli military law,
restricted from most Israeli roads,
subject to frequent run-ins with the authorities
and detention without trial,
in a legal system that is opaque and arbitrary.
Israel says the measures are necessary for security.
I was in the South Hebron Hills during the olive harvest,
a time when tensions run high, with Palestinians prevented
from getting to trees they say they've harvested for years.
How are you doing?
VOICEOVER: I was curious to see the interactions for myself.
I'd heard from an Israeli activist group,
they were trying to help a farmer named Isaac Jabereen.
Louis. Salam. What's happening here today?
The army arrived.
A nearby settlement had allegedly called them
to report the olive picking.
One of those on the scene was a long-time Israeli activist,
mathematician Kobi Snitz.
Kobi, do you know... Do you know what they're doing right now?
The army has said, "You got to leave in five minutes."
And now the landowner has to make a choice, uh,
if to try to insist on staying here and taking a risk.
They're liable to do anything.
They could arrest the Palestinians. They can arrest us.
Who knows what they might do?
Have you been arrested before?
Do you think he would have been arrested?
40% of all Palestinian men have been arrested, so probably.
Where are you from?
British television.
Passport.
Can I ask why you're taking my passport?
I need to check. Check what?
QUIETLY: Check what?
Nothing. They don't check nothing. They just want to scare us.
If he'd kept picking, he would have been arrested?
No, it's not to arrest.
It's just to evacuate the area.
Meaning what, though, if he says, "I'm not leaving"?
I'm grateful we didn't get to that part.
Because what would happen?
I actually don't...
As a soldier, you would have to, what, detain him? That's...
I rather not speaking it.
SCREAMING
Alongside their interactions with the army,
Palestinians throughout the West Bank
also suffer attacks by settlers.
INDISTINCT SHOUTING
These videos come from the South Hebron Hills,
where I'd seen the olive picking.
In the town of Tuwani, a settler was caught on camera
shooting and severely injuring a Palestinian man.
SCREAMING
The shooter had his gun licence revoked, but he was never arrested.
I'd heard of other similar incidents.
SCREAMING
In the same town of Tuwani,
I'd made contact with a 20-year-old Palestinian student
and local activist named Mohammad Hureini.
He'd offered to take me to the top of the hill
to meet his neighbour who lives at a spot closest to a settlement.
Louis. Nice to meet you.
Thank you for having us.
Musahb Rabaee's house still bears the scars
of what he says were settler attacks.
So there's bullets that have come through here? Yeah.
Where that bright light is?
So what is that? Is that an outpost or... What is that?
Is there anyone in there?
VEHICLE APPROACHES Hang on, something's happening.
What is it?
Are they coming in?
SOLDIERS SHOUT
That's a laser on the rifles.
What do we do? Just stay in here?
Matan, what do you think?
It's not safe at the moment.
There's obviously multiple guns pointing at us.
Let's wait.
What can we do? Can we call the police?
This doesn't worry you?
After more than an hour, the soldiers appeared to lose interest,
and the crew and I slipped away.
The violence committed by some settlers is often justified by them
as a response to violence they experience from Palestinians,
which is much less frequent.
Nevertheless, it's hard to disentangle it
from an ideology of the superiority of one group
and their rights over another,
promoted by leaders like Daniella Weiss.
Hiya, how are you?
Come in.
Hoping for more insight into her and her work, I was back.
I have a meeting, so...
But do have a seat. Thank you.
So we'll just wait. Great.
OK. From now on, follow me... OK. ..if you want to know.
Are we leaving?
So we're going to meet you there? All right.
I was joining Daniella and some friends of hers
in a convoy heading towards Gaza.
Mission unclear.
Two hours later, we were 1km from the Gaza border
in the Israeli town of Sderot,
arriving at a yeshiva, a religious school,
where Daniella took part in an assembly
alongside two prominent rabbis.
What's happening next, Daniella?
Shall we follow you? We'll follow her.
Our next stop was a memorial for the victims of October 7th.
Sderot had seen heavy fighting during the Hamas attacks
and suffered many losses.
For some passersby, Daniella held a degree of celebrity status.
Then the settler convoy arrived at what seemed to be its destination.
A viewpoint overlooking the war zone.
Daniella had told me she'd signed up 800 families
who were ready to move into Gaza.
One of her team explained how it would work.
The idea seemed to be to get spiritual buy-in
from the two rabbis.
One of them was next to speak, Rabbi Dov Lior.
SINGING
As the day ended, we were following Daniella's car,
driving on what seemed to be army-controlled land,
approaching ever closer to the Gaza border.
You can see the destroyed houses.
It had previously been reported that Daniella had been illegally escorted
into Gaza by soldiers who supported her,
to recce locations for settlement.
Suddenly her vehicle broke away.
HORN BLARES
On this occasion, she was intercepted.
So, basically, she had a military escort
and then she just peeled away
and made a sprint for the border of Gaza? Yeah.
She's just tried to run away from the army, hasn't she? Yeah.
Did you try and make a dash for the Gaza border?
What was happening down there?
DANIELLA LAUGHS
I enjoyed it so much.
Our two jeeps were... Drew too much attention.
But what's the idea? Why do you want to go down to...
I wanted to... You wanted to enter Gaza? No.
What I wanted to do,
I wanted to show the rabbis
that Gaza
is not something beyond reach.
Would you say October 7th made people more receptive
to your message and to your point of view?
No doubt.
The October 7th
naturally made people more receptive
to the idea of the great Israel.
But the next step,
Jewish settlements in Gaza,
is a very difficult step
that demands a lot of work.
You have to influence the leftists, the government,
the nations of the world, using the magic system, Zionism.
You redeem the land,
you establish communities,
you bring Jewish families.
You live...live Jewish life.
And this will bring light instead of darkness.
And this is how the state of Israel was established.
And this is what we want to do in Gaza.
This process of making the whole of the West Bank and Gaza Jewish,
do you feel like it's moving more quickly?
As far as Judea and Samaria is concerned,
so we want to move from one million to two million.
So this is the next step.
This is my vision.
Not so complicated.
Daniella's vision has been made possible by the Israeli occupation.
But it in turn has led to the creation
of a vast military infrastructure,
which impacts every aspect of Palestinian life.
Nowhere is it more evident than in Hebron.
Hebron is an ancient biblical city,
home to some 200,000 Palestinians,
a place holy to three major religions.
Hi, how are you? Fine, thank you. Where you guys from?
We're from a British TV crew.
In 1968, the year after it was occupied by Israel,
a community of Jewish settlers moved in illegally.
They now number around 700,
existing in a cordon of military protection.
I visited in 2010,
when I'd spent time with a settler leader.
Now 14 years on, I was curious
about life within the Palestinian community.
I'm Louis. Hi, Louis. Nice to meet you. Welcome.
Thank you for having us.
Issa Amro, a Palestinian activist,
was born here in a settler-occupied area.
You've got fences all around? All around.
Fences from here... Yeah.
Who lives on the other side? Israeli settlers.
You've got army there. What are they doing? Have they come for a reason?
No. They come for intimidation.
How are you?
They're not speaking but I think what they would say is,
"Well, we're here to provide security for the settlers
"who live here, and want to live in peace,
"and experience animosity from the Palestinians."
So they want to live in peace at the expense of my basic human rights.
I didn't choose to live in Hebron. I was born in Hebron. It's my land.
It's my homeland. Mm-hm. The settlers chose to come here,
and if it's not safe for them,
why they continue building more and more settlements in my own city?
By international law, the settlements are illegal.
They don't see us as equal human beings
who deserve the same rights they do.
Lead the way. Yeah.
For nearly 20 years, Issa has been an advocate
for nonviolent resistance against the occupation.
He is one of around 30,000 Palestinians living inside
the high-security area of Hebron, the so-called sterile zone.
For them, just doing their shopping, going to work, or going to school
means passing through military checkpoints.
Let's see how it works.
Hi. Hi. How are you guys doing?
Good. How are you? Fine. Everything OK?
I need your passport, please.
All of you. OK?
Uh, sure. What for? Why? Check.
Why? Hi, Issa. How are you doing, mate? How you doing? Hi.
Why you cover your faces?
Because of the cold. No!
Come on, guys. Don't hide.
Only gangs hide their faces.
You are a military. You should have your faces obvious to everybody.
You know Issa? He lives here. Yes. Yeah, he lives here.
He says it's making life very difficult
to have the military presence here. What are you doing here?
What are you all doing here? What am I doing here? Making a documentary.
A documentary? Yeah, for British television. Of what? Of what?
About settlers in the West Bank. Settlers in the West Bank? Yes.
OK. And what do you tell to the television about the settlements?
It's not about what I'm telling them, it's about what I'm hearing
from the people who I speak to. Where do you live?
I don't... I don't want to tell you. OK.
I told you where I was staying. UNTRANSLATED
Say that again.
UNTRANSLATED
What does that mean?
It's, "Enjoy from the trip in Hebron here." Thank you.
Wish you all the best, guys.
How is life here? Is it...
It's like... You're very well-armed.
Do you... Do you...
Is there a situation here that needs careful control?
Of course. What is it? Tell me about it.
What was he saying about Arabi?
No, he wanted to see if you're an Arab.
He asked you if you speak Arabic.
Hello, how are you doing? What's up? Hey, how are you doing?
I'm doing excellent. American? What do I look, Chinese?
Yeah. From Brooklyn?
You bet. Let me just pull over to the side. OK.
Do you know him? No, he doesn't live here.
You OK?
Do you need help? Are you OK? No.
Are you stuck? Are you in a rut?
Why are you filming me?
SOLDIER SIGHS
It's all good, don't worry,
we can't even see your face. Look, you're obscured.
No-one can even see who you are.
Don't worry. I don't know what to do with you.
I have work to do. Get on with your work, you're fine.
You stay here in the check post and filming everything.
You can't do this here, OK?
Come with me. No, you can't do that.
Come with me. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't touch me.
No violence. You just touched me. Don't touch me. No violence.
Listen to me. Yeah, I'm listening.
Come, come. No.
I'm from the military, OK? Mm-hm. IDF, Israel Defence Forces.
I'm above the police here in the West Bank. OK.
I'm the highest responsibility of law. OK.
We'll tell it like this, OK?
And as this man, IDF, I need to tell you,
not staying here. OK. We'll move along. That's fine.
OK. Leave. Leave this place. Leave this area, OK?
Yeah, we'll move along. Right now. Yalla. Louis, let's go.
OK. Yalla. Let's go.
So who lives here? Palestinian families.
And where are they? They are hiding behind their doors.
What would stop these shops from being open?
It's closed by military orders
and marked as closed shops. It's marked.
From this shop would be five families, at least,
live and earn their living.
Look, this is something new.
This, not to hire Arab workers in Israel.
Two faces, the faces of an Arab and a face of a terrorist.
This is how they stereotype us.
Middle finger.
He gave you the middle finger? Yes, to you, too.
You think it was to me? To you. I think it was to you. To you.
To both of us. Because you deserve the middle finger
if you report about Palestinians.
UNTRANSLATED
Wait, wait. ID, please.
For what reason?
It's the policies.
Yes.
That one?
Why can't he... Why can't he be with us?
How come Palestinians can't come down here?
It seems ironic that that's the visitor's centre, right?
For tourists and whatnot?
And he can't actually visit in his own...in his own city.
You knew that was going to happen.
No, it's new that they asked me to come back to here.
He told me that I'm allowed only to here.
So they expanded the closed area for me.
What's it all about?
Taking more and more land.
It's about fragmented life, restricted life for Palestinians.
No quality life.
You live with the basics, with the basics,
even with less than basics of a family need...
..to make you leave. And they are doing well.
The majority of the houses are empty.
Families are leaving.
You could flip it and say, well, if they really wanted
to occupy the whole of Hebron, or at least this area,
they could literally deport Palestinians.
They do it slowly.
But now, they are speeding up.
They want approval from their allies and their partners in the world.
Is it worth going through to see the other side?
Yes, I can show you. To see what it looks like?
This gives you a little flavour of what it was like in there before?
Yes. The market was much more busy inside.
It was our Oxford Street inside.
So busy, my father used to hold my arm not to lose me.
Not any more. It's closed completely. Restricted.
In order to get back in, we can't go through there now,
cos they've closed it. It's closed now. So how do we get back in?
You try from another checkpoint. Mm-hm.
Through here? Yes.
Louis.
Coming through? Yes. All right.
OK, just a moment, just a moment.
When it's green. With the green light, go in.
This one, please.
So now we're on the other side of the area
where you couldn't walk before, right? Yes.
Where they stopped you from walking in front of the visitors' centre.
But you need to get home. Yes. So what will you do?
I will go around again.
I will go outside this checkpoint,
go around, to enter from another checkpoint,
and wait till the checkpoint opens, to get into my house with my son.
You definitely can't come this way?
I can't come this way. OK.
I can... They won't let you through? No, they will not.
I'm not allowed. I was happy to meet you. Thank you so much.
Bye-bye. Take care. Bye-bye.
On the drive back from Hebron,
I reflected on the separate lives lived by Israelis and Palestinians
and the unequal system of rights and justice.
We ran into a traffic jam, caused by a bomb scare.
The road, the main artery in the West Bank,
is one of the few shared by Israelis and Palestinians.
For once, all were subject to delay.
It was a sobering experience visiting Hebron again.
Issa had told me he believed life was being made intolerable
for Palestinians deliberately
to make them leave
and that the process was speeding up since October 7th.
And it was true that some settlers I'd met supported the deportation
of Palestinians who won't submit to Jewish authority.
One of them was Ari, a Texan, born and raised in Houston,
now resident deep inside the occupied West Bank.
Good to see you. Good to see you. How are you? I'm all right.
A little under the weather. I'm sorry to hear that.
Thank you for having us back.
Hoping to understand a little better,
I'd returned to see him again.
OK. We're ready for the coffee.
I really hope I do this right.
I never know if you wear those guns just for effect.
I don't know what effect I'm looking for.
Do I want to look more militant?
Yeah, no, I'm not wearing it just for effect. Do you want to sit down?
We've talked a lot about how you see the, uh...
the importance of Jewish presence
in what was termed the biblical land of Israel.
Are you saying that you see Israel
as playing a role for modelling a new kind of,
what, nationalism? Is that... Is that right?
I think that all of what's happening in the world right now is leading us
as a nation to open our eyes to who we are.
We are the tip of the spear fighting the battles of America
in defending
the entire Western world.
And not just the Western world,
anyone who wants any semblance of liberty and freedom in their lives.
Nevertheless, there are millions of people up and down the area,
uh, Arabs, Muslims, who aren't living free, right?
They're enclosed without the same rights,
without national self-determination
and, in many respects, feeling besieged.
And I just wonder, do you see that?
I don't have tremendous compassion for a society that has
an unquenchable, genocidal,
theological bloodlust. It's like a death cult.
It seems to me there's a danger with that characterisation
of Palestinians. You define them as eliminationist
and hateful and...and genocidal.
Yeah, I used the words death cult also. As a death cult.
Um... That that then permits you to almost create a mirror image
of that, that you say, "Well, if they want to do that to us,
"then we need to do that to them."
I think that when you're living amongst people
who have perpetually proven, not only by word but by deed,
that they want your blood spilled in the streets,
that they want to murder your children,
that they want to slay all of you, kill all of you
in the most horrific genocidal way...
All of the polls showed after October 7th that these people
who you continuously call the Palestinian people,
that I reject the very premise
that they are actually a real nation for a lot of reasons. I mean...
But the millions of people who have nothing to do with October 7th,
right? Who actually just would like to live free, full lives.
If that's really what they wanted,
they would have had it a long time ago.
They want to wipe Israel off the map.
They want every last Jew dead.
Because... So what's the answer?
The answer is for us to declare sovereignty
over all of Judea and Samaria,
and all of the land of Israel, and Gaza.
And to settle Gaza and all of Judea and Samaria
with Jews in the land of Israel.
Did the question annoy you?
Annoy me? I just... I hear it so often.
And it feels like it's being addressed again and again and again.
Even if the entire world is pointing accusing fingers
and gnashing their teeth in rage and anger,
we know the righteousness and the truth of our cause,
even if we stand alone.
That's what it means to be a Hebrew. That's what it means to be a Jew.
If we know the truth of our cause, that's all we need.
For Ari, it was clear that nothing is greater than the word of God.
And that word had led him to believe that it was the divine right
of the Jewish people to settle and rule this land.
Good to see you. See you later.
God should bless and protect you. Amen.
The Bible was, as he saw it, a land deed to the West Bank.
With an afternoon free,
I stopped for coffee in the Palestinian city of Nablus...
..surrounded by the ancient architecture of the old city,
and the undeniable fact of the hundreds of thousands of people
living there, and their aspirations for statehood.
At the edge of the city, we were held up at one of the many
checkpoints that control the people entering and leaving.
Can you put the gun down?
Where are you from? From London. London.
You've been in the market? Yes.
You also?
Yes. Yes.
She work with you? Yes. She's American.
Can you show me ID?
Me?
Everyone.
Yeah, sure.
It's very slow going.
We're in there... in that queue for an hour or more.
What, uh...
How much time you going to stay in Israel?
Hang on, but I don't think we're in Israel.
Huh? Are we in Israel?
You're in Israel now. Are we? Yes.
In the West Bank, no?
In the north of the West Bank,
I was heading back to the settlement of Evyatar,
where I'd been hosted by Malkiel, the horse-wrangler.
Since my visit, I'd learned a little more about the settlement's
relations with its neighbouring Palestinian town of Beita.
How Beita had been subject to settler attacks
and how it, in turn, had organised regular protests of the settlement.
Demonstrators had been killed and others wounded during the clashes.
SIREN WAILS
One of the deaths of a Turkish-American volunteer,
Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, made headlines.
Now the settlement was holding a festival
to celebrate its recent recognition by the Israeli State.
MUSIC PLAYS
Entertainments had been laid on
and families from settlements from around the West Bank
had converged for a day of music and activities.
One of those speaking was Daniella.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
How are you?
You want to go there? Yeah, it's a bit quieter.
As the festivities wound down, I had a moment to speak to Daniella
on a hilltop overlooking the Palestinian town of Beita.
So you've been talking about settling.
You've talked about displacing, wanting the Palestinians to go,
you said, to Africa, to Canada, to England,
you don't care where. Turkey. Mm-hm.
What would be wrong with either a two-state solution
or a one-state solution where everyone had the same rights?
We want to have a Jewish state based on Jewish rules,
on Jewish values.
It's not a relationship of neighbours. Why not?
Cos we are two different nations.
Different. I just wonder whether you feel,
or you're aware that, um...you know,
they're really suffering. And there's been settlers
rampaging through the area of the West Bank,
so there's all this... Agitation.
..death. Tragedy. Right? Tragedy.
When a people is invaded, right?
And then put under a military occupation,
deprived of their rights,
that anger seems to be an understandable response,
an appropriate response.
There is no such thing as settler violence.
Did I speak... I don't know if... I don't mind saying it again.
Mm-hm. And I don't mind... I will be glad to explain.
You don't believe it's real? There are videos. You can see them.
You see what? OK.
Let's say... Mm-hm.
..we have a camera here. Yes.
And I do this. Yeah.
Do something. You don't mind what I did to you?
You don't... Well, I won't do that to you.
You won't do that. No.
And then the camera takes just part.
Mm-hm.
You don't have the full picture.
Then I say you're violent.
You're violent against a woman.
This is exactly what is going on all the time with what you call,
er... Settler violence. Settler violence.
Settlers do not wake up in the morning,
or do not go and wait for sundown to attack.
No, no, no, no.
Why should we wake up in the morning and think about violence?
Why? Our life is good!
Because you want the Palestinians to leave.
No! No, no, no! You've said so.
I said that what is on my mind all the time...
..is how to bring more people to settle the land.
This a new development by Jews.
This is Yitzhar, this we can...
Here we can develop. Here we cannot develop.
I never think in terms of... I know this is Beita.
Mm-hm. I don't think in... I don't think about Beita.
Why not? Because I think about, I am a Jew.
They're people. I'm a settler. They're people. I'm a human being.
Yes, you are. And so are they. So I do not think about this.
You're thinking about tribalism. Thinking of your own people
to the exclusion... It would be understandable
to think of your own people or your own children first.
But to think about other people, other children not at all?
That seems sociopathic.
DANIELLA CHUCKLES
I can, uh... Doesn't it?
No, not at all. This is normal.
To my children, I give everything
because I... The normal thing, normal thing for me
is to pray for my own people.
That's it. So now I continue.
I hoped you'd push me back.
And so I said goodbye to Daniella
and her extreme ideology delivered with a smile.
14 years on from my first visit,
with the horror of October 7th in the interim
and the ongoing devastation of Gaza,
the settler dream shows no sign of abating...
..along with the dislocation, displacement and death
that follows inevitably in its train.
Advanced by ideologues,
backed up by those in power
and accountable only to God.