
The Settlers
Since Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Six-Day War, a small movement of religious and nationalist settlers has grown into a political force that shapes the country's map and its conflict with the Palestinians. Director Shimon Dotan traces that growth from the first outposts built by Gush Emunim activists through the sprawling hilltop communities of today, using archival footage of early settler confrontations with the Israeli army alongside present-day interviews. Settlers themselves describe the religious and ideological conviction that drove them to build homes on land claimed by Palestinians, while historians, former government officials, and military figures lay out how the state alternately opposed, tolerated, and ultimately absorbed the settlement project into its own policy. The film does not resolve the argument over legality or morality; instead it shows how a fringe movement became mainstream, block by block, with each side of the debate given room to make its case on camera. It closes with the settlements still expanding and the conflict they helped shape no closer to an end.