My message to Benjamin Netanyahu: stop your coup or we’ll stop the country | Yuval Noah Harari

Plans for the Israeli judicial system are an anti-democratic coup - and will be resisted

• Amid growing protests about plans to overhaul Israel's judicial system, the author and academic Yuval Noah Harari addressed a pro-democracy demonstration in Tel Aviv on Saturday. This is an edited version of his speech

We are in the midst of a historical hurricane. This hurricane stirs in us not anger or hatred - but fear. We're anxious, we don't sleep at night, we are simply terrified. And this is perfectly OK. There are moments in history when fear is the most sane reaction. There are moments in history when fear is necessary to propel us to action.

Today we have an excellent reason to be afraid, and we have an excellent reason to act. Don't let anybody fool you: what this government is carrying out is not a judicial reform, it is an anti-democratic coup. This is exactly what a coup looks like.