Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed criticism of the new government's planned judicial reform, telling people to "calm down" during a press conference on Wednesday evening.
"I would like to calm the public discourse. The state will not be destroyed, democracy will not be destroyed, the essence of democracy beyond the balance between the three authorities and of course majority rule is respect for individual rights," said Netanyahu.
"The essence of democracy is that debates, including the one we are debating today, are done neither with bullets nor with shells, they are actually decided at the polling stations and decided by votes in the Knesset or the Parliament."
The prime minister called for the limits of discourse to be defined. "In a democracy the leaders of the opposition are not arrested, and in a democracy the opposition does not call the ministers of the government Nazis and the government that has now been elected with the majority of the votes the Third Reich."
"You need to relax, and above all, just an addition - no violence either. No violence. There is no permit for violence, there is no permit to block roads and there are no other things that intrude on the rights of every citizen."