Some 150 Israeli demonstrators sounded vuvuzelas in the shade of a holm oak, chanting "Democracy!" and waving flags and placards. This wasn't just another of the dozens of demonstrations that have been taking place in the Jewish state every week since January, in protest against the judicial reform plans of Benyamin Netanyahu's government. On Friday, August 25, for the first time, a rally was organized in the heart of Kiryat Arba, one of the West Bank's first settlements, built not far from Hebron in 1970 by the founding fathers of religious Zionism.

It's in this locality, known for housing the most radical factions of the pro-settler movement, that Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir resides. Head of the Jewish Power party and a former thug turned police chief, this ultranationalist is a master in the art of racist provocation.

This is Kahane Park, named in honor of Meir Kahane, founder of the anti-Arab paramilitary Jewish Defense League in 1968, a man for whom violence was a way of relating to the rest of the world. He was one of the fathers of the ideology Ben-Gvir claims to be heir to, a blend of radical nationalism, religious messianism and Jewish supremacism. Convicted of terrorism in the United States, elected to the Knesset in 1984 and then banned from running because his party – the Kach – was deemed racist by the Supreme Court, he has been a proponent of a greater Israel and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the West Bank.

For good measure, the park is located next to the grave of Baruch Goldstein, the perpetrator of the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs massacre – when 29 Palestinians were murdered with automatic weapons while praying in the Ibrahim Mosque, the Muslim name for the site. This Kach party member has become the object of a veritable cult among the most fundamentalist settlers. It is precisely Kahanism – to which Ben-Gvir claims to belong – that the demonstrators are seeking to discredit by chanting "Kahane is dead" to the tune of "Mohammed is dead." This slogan refers to the prophet of Islam and is used by the most radical pro-settlers against the Palestinians.

After the Knesset adopted the first provision of the reform in July, opponents of the project have been trying to regain the initiative. "We came here because this is the source of the current problem. The West Bank settlers have now entered the government. They want to take control of the state, and then take control of Palestine," said Mossi Raz, a former MP and member of the left-wing Meretz party. One of his neighbors added, "We can feel things moving. The settlers are openly using apartheid rhetoric, like Ben-Gvir two days ago."

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