Roger Walters, left, speaking to an Israeli settler in his new documentary “Settling The Facts: A Deeper Look At Israeli Settlements.” Photo: YouTube screenshot

A new documentary released Tuesday on YouTube hopes to humanize the stories of Israel’s settlers in the West Bank, who are often portrayed in the media as extremists and radicals, while also challenging the notion that Israeli settlements block peace efforts between Israelis and Palestinians in the region.

While there are a number of documentaries on YouTube about Israeli settlers and settlements, they all tackle the topic from an “anti-Israel perspective,” British businessman Roger Walters, the host and creative force who spearheaded the new documentary Settling The Facts: A Deeper Look At Israeli Settlements, told The Algemeiner. He said his documentary is the first to focus on the issues from a historical, moral and legal angle, “in a way that provides a serious, comprehensive and nuanced case for the settlements.”

“I have felt that Israeli settlers are consistently unfairly demonized in the media – described as fanatical, breaking international law, and an obstacle to peace,” he further explained. “I felt that this created a skewed perspective for people who only read headlines without knowing the deeper truth. I spent many times visiting these settlements and what I saw was a very different story — not least that the vast majority are peaceful and normal, just like you and me.”

Filming for the documentary took place in London — where Walters spoke to various activists, legal experts and historians in-person and on Zoom — and in Israel last November, where he spent several weeks visiting roughly 50 different settlements and speaking with both Israelis and Palestinians. Interviewed in the documentary are both people who oppose and support the settlements, including Israeli settlers, international law experts, politicians, activists, business owners in the settlements, Palestinians who live beside Israelis and some who work for them in the settlements.

Most Palestinians who worked for Israelis in the settlements feared being filmed, believing that showcasing their relationship with Israelis could jeopardize their safety and their families, Walters said.

“We are here like a family,” a Palestinian — who has been working for five years in the bakery Racheli’s Cookies, located in the Israeli settlement of Gush Etzion — told Walters in the documentary. His name was not revealed and in addition his face was blurred and his voice was changed in the film to preserve his safety. He added, “I feel everybody [is] human. I don’t feel that’s Jewish, Arabic …We don’t care about politics. We work, that’s it. We don’t care about anything else.”

Shlomo Keshet, who lives in the settlement Kokhave HaShahar, said in another scene: “I have friends here in the nearby village, really good friends — Arabs [and] Muslims. And I have no problem with people who want peace, who want to live together with us as good neighbors. Our hands are stretched out in peace.”

The film tackles the questions of who are the settlers, why do they live in these regions and is their presence in the area making peace more attainable between Israelis and Palestinians? It also shows viewers the openness many Palestinians have to engaging and furthering relations with Israelis in the settlements.

“In Palestine and Israel, we are friends and there is no problem between us. All the problems that occur, happen between politicians,” a Palestinian employee in the settlement of Efrat said in the film. “As for us, as citizens in Israel or Palestine, we are friends, family and neighbors … We as Arabs or in Israel do not seek problems. We as people do not want problems. We do not want death [or] suffering. We want to live our life in peace.”

The documentary’s description teases that some of the discoveries made in the film may surprise viewers, and in fact they left Walters himself somewhat shocked.

“I came to realize that while settlements are not the obstacle to peace, the surprising realization is that they may in fact be part of the answer to peace,” he explained to The Algemeiner. “How is the idea that all the Jews leaving the West Bank/Judea and Samaria going to help further peace? Settlements are the only reference point most Palestinians have for Jews other than what they are taught about Jews and Israel in their schools and the media.”

Watch Settling The Facts: A Deeper Look At Israeli Settlements below.