‘Settler leader Daniella Weiss was constantly on the phone with Netanyahu’

The question-answer session after the screening of the groundbreaking documentary Holy Redemption in Sarajevo provided stunning insights into the Israeli government’s tacit support to the illegal settlers.

The 53-minute documentary by TRT World won the prestigious AJB Documentary Film Festival Program Jury Award at the 7th Al Jazeera Balkan Film Festival held between September 13 and 17 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Sarajevo screening evoked the painful memories of the Srebrenica genocide as many could draw the parallels between the Zionist settlers and the ethnic Serb forces that engaged in large scale massacres in 1995.

After watching Holy Redemption, the audience in Sarajevo became curious about how the TRT crew managed to interview the leaders of the fanatic Hilltop Youth – an organisation that even the Israeli intelligence agency Sin Beit finds too extremist- and how they managed to gain access to ‘outpost’ sites whose existence even Israelis don’t know about.

The first part of the question was answered by producer Aslihan Eker Cakmak, by reminding us that the racist and genocidal discourse coming from the mouths of characters in the documentary such as Daniella Weiss, Nati Rom and others have already been aired on TV many times, but that we have grown immune to it.

The film’s makers said that Weiss –leader of the Nachala settler movement – was so often on the phone with Benjamin Netanyahu that even during the shooting she had to take a break and speak to him for a while.

During the course of the investigation, it became clear to the filmmakers that the far-right government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was tacitly backing radical Israeli settlers who adopted violent methods to drive out Palestinians from their lands in the occupied West Bank.

The documentary offers a never-before-seen look into atrocities carried out by radical settlers in the occupied West Bank and also offers a glimpse into plans by ultra-religious organisations to parcel out besieged Gaza to settlers.

The Sarajevo screening was the film’s international premiere after its first showing at an event in Istanbul and subsequent telecast on TRT’s domestic channels ahead of the festival.

As to the question of how they managed to get to the outposts, the answer was “dedicated teamwork” of TRT’s investigative journalists, including Jose Carlos Soares, who put their lives on the line.

Jose Carlos Soares described himself as the ice breaker, playing football with the kids, making them feel comfortable, but at the end of the day, as he pointed out, they didn’t even have to put any ‘leading questions’ to the settlers and their leaders.

They themselves chose to say that living with Palestinians was impossible, that Palestinians have to leave Palestine, or that the settlers will have to kill them all.

The outposts are set up by ‘pioneers’ as Nati Rom calls the settlers, a clear reference to the way Europeans stole the lands of Native Americans.

“We are all very familiar with the settlements, but we have never been shown the mechanics of how they start, with Zionist families living in caravans on hilltops, the Israeli army coming to ‘protect’ them, and then declaring the place as part of Israel,” the documentary's makers said.

They also revealed that Israel’s attack on Gaza started when the crew was already filming in the occupied West Bank and that having already gained the confidence of Danielle Weiss, they learnt immediately that settlers were already drawing plans to settle in Gaza.

The documentary ends with a group of settlers, including a Knesset member, getting on a boat to scout out what bits of Gaza they will take for themselves from a safe distance, while the Israeli army is bombing civilians, ‘clearing’ the space for them.

The documentary thus manages to connect what is happening in the West Bank with what is happening in Gaza by exposing the many parts of the machine that is the genocidal state of Israel.

And to the question of whether the crew was not afraid of for their own safety once the film got out into the world, Çakmak said the fanatic settlers were quite happy to be broadcasting their genocidal intent, and director Tanju Sahin reminded the audience that their “lives are not more precious than the Palestinian children we see die on our screens every day”.

In his acceptance speech, TRT Deputy Director General Omer Faruk Tanriverdi said it was especially meaningful for the Turkish public broadcaster that the prize had been awarded in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the scars of Srebrenica are still very fresh.

He added that since October 7, TRT World has been trying to get the facts of the genocide in Gaza to the global audience and that the documentary was the culmination of its efforts to make the world hear Palestine’s story.

He said TRT would continue its efforts to “break the silence” and hoped that the film would continue to reach international audiences.

In a special screening, the festival showed Aida Hadzimusic’s Uncle’s Ring, about the filmmaker herself trying to piece together the story of her uncle’s murder, and the audience watched enraptured, crying, speaking loudly at the screen (especially in scenes where the Serb characters displayed cognitive dissonance about the genocide).

It was a great reminder that films have a role to play in commemorating the dead and processing what has happened.