Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acted in the nick of time. In an early-evening televised speech last Monday, he announced temporary suspension of the legislative process aimed at passing his governing coalition’s proposed judicial overhaul. He forestalled, in his words, “civil war.” However, the vital task of healing wounds and building the trust on which enduring reform of Israel’s political institutions depends has scarcely begun.

Since mid-January, hundreds of thousands of flag-waving citizens have filled streets and thoroughfares throughout the Jewish state. Mostly left and center and with many coming from the middle and upper-middle classes, the protesters have been of all ages and encompassed most political persuasions and religious sensibilities. Their principal demand has been that Netanyahu’s hard right-wing government cease and desist from ramming through legislation substantially transforming the regime’s structure by subordinating the judiciary to the executive and the legislature.

Many on both sides fervently believe that the other side seeks to destroy democracy in Israel. The opposition warns of the establishment of dictatorship. Netanyahu’s coalition members – encouraged by the prime minister’s vituperative and Twitter-happy son Yair – denounce protesters as anarchists, traitors, and Nazis.