The Land of the Settlers
| The Land of the Settlers | |
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| Directed by | Chaim Yavin |
| Original language(s) | Hebrew |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Chaim Yavin |
| Running time | 120 min. several parts |
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| Original release |
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The Land of the Settlers is a five-part documentary series created by Chaim Yavin, who was described by the Arab News as "the Israeli version of America’s Walter Cronkite". With a handheld camera, Yavin traveled throughout his homeland of Israel and interviewed a range of Palestinians and Israelis in order to document the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Released in 2005, his series was too controversial to air on Israel's public TV station, Channel 1, despite the fact that he had helped to create the station and served as its lead anchorman. It ran instead on Channel 2, creating a stir for its sympathy towards Palestinians.
"The message of the series was," Yavin explains, "If we want peace, we have to dismantle the settlements."
In Part 1, Yavin travels through the West Bank, inviting himself into the homes of both Israelis and Palestinians in order to get a highly personal look at the conflict. Both the Palestinians and Israeli settlers tell Yavin that their lives are being toyed with because of their ethnicity, without respect for the fact that they are human beings, with rooted families and established lives. Palestinians on line at a checkpoint complain to the camera that the four-hour wait they’re enduring in the hot sun is common, while an Israel mother rants, "I think Jews that vote to evacuate us from our homes should come and talk to us. If they looked us in the eyes before they did, I think I’d feel differently."
PART 2 focuses on Hebron, Abraham's ancient home, a holy city where the Palestinian majority is held suspect and monitored by the heavily armed Israeli Defense Force, hinting at a strange role reversal of the Jewish population since the Second World War. There, Yavin films a concrete wall where someone wrote in spraypaint, "Arabs to the crematorium." There's hate on both sides, but Yavin's documentary asks to what extent have the oppressed become the oppressors.
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