JERUSALEM — Israel's president urged both sides of a dispute over moves to overhaul the judiciary to refrain from violence, using the occasion of a Jewish fast on Thursday to appeal for reconciliation as protesters vowed more demonstrations.
The plans being pursued by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right government have spurred months of unprecedented protests, opened a deep divide in Israeli society and strained the loyalties of some army reservists.
Now in its seventh month, the crisis escalated on Monday after parliament passed the first of the changes, trimming Supreme Court powers to overrule government actions and raising fears for the integrity of Israel's 75-year-old democracy.
Demonstrations for and against the judicial overhaul were on hold for Tisha B'Av, the fast day mourning the destruction of two ancient Jewish temples in Jerusalem.
"I appeal on everyone: Even when the pain peaks, we must preserve the boundaries of the dispute and refrain from violence and irreversible measures," President Isaac Herzog, who plays a largely ceremonial role, said on Facebook.
"We must imagine our lives together here — in another 40, 50 and 100 years — and how each action will impact on our children and grandchildren, and on the bridges between us," Herzog said.
Political watchdog groups have appealed to the Supreme Court to quash the new law enacted by Netanyahu's religious-nationalist coalition, paving the way for a showdown among branches of government when it hears the arguments in September.
The legal tussle will begin as early as next Thursday, however, when the top court will hear an appeal against a coalition bill ratified in March that limited conditions for removing the prime minister from office.
In a related showdown, the Supreme Court set a Sept. 7 hearing in a case brought by a political watchdog against the government over its failure to convene a panel that selects judges, which Netanyahu's changes aim to expand.
Despite a growing roster of unfilled court positions, Justice Minister Yariv Levin has declined to convene the committee in its unchanged format.
Protesters were out in force again when the fast ended Thursday at sunset. They accuse Netanyahu of working to curb court independence even as he argues his innocence in a graft trial, and of unilaterally changing the justice system to the detriment of once-dominant secular liberals.
"The government is illegitimate," said a poster that protest leader Shikma Bressler published on social media that included an image of the Roman-era pillaging of a key Jerusalem temple.
Netanyahu says the changes will balance government branches. He casts the protests as a bid to thwart his democratic mandate.
"There is a middle ground there, and I hope we can achieve it," he said in an interview Thursday with ABC News' “Good Morning America.”
"I'll still try to proceed, if not in consensus with the opposition ... then at least on something that has broad acceptance in the public ... broad national consensus. I'll do my best to do it, and we'll get over it," he said.
U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk called on those in power to heed the calls of protesters he said were standing up for human rights and the "democratic space and constitutional balance so painstakingly built in Israel over many decades."
The plans have hit the economy, drawing warnings from credit agencies and triggering foreign investor flight.
The ongoing controversy is increasing domestic political uncertainty and will lead to lower economic growth this year, S&P Global Ratings said in a report.
Protest leaders say growing numbers of military reservists have decided to stop serving to express their opposition.
The military has acknowledged an increase in requests to abstain from service and said damage would be done gradually to war-readiness if the no-shows proved protracted.
