For a little over two months, the Likud-led Israeli government under Binyamin Netanyahu (Bibi) has been rapidly forcing through the Kenesset a series of bills designed to reset the powers of the judiciary.

If you are part of the government, you will claim that these are reforms, that are long overdue. Relatively little outside support has been heard for the bulk of the proposals.

The opposition can be seen in the growing weekly demonstrations (around 300,000 participants last week), warnings from international credit agencies, threats of refusing to serve from army and air force reservists, and…………….. well the list is pretty long. Even the Presidents of France and the USA have commented less favourably on the subject.

How worrying is the situation? The Bank of Israel is now demanding the banks report twice a week on shifts in currency to overseas! Anyone worried?

About 3 weeks ago, President Herzog launched a private initiative to find a compromise. By yesterday, it had become apparent that he was making some genuine progress.

Now Herzog has battled Bibi before. They come from opposite sides of the political map. Herzog was born into a family that knows all about politics and diplomacy. His brother is a serving general. And he is a lawyer by training. The day after he won the vote in the Kenesset to be President, he was seen buying veg and milk in his local grocery store. The man has pedigree.

What has convinced Bibi to change?

It is not just because Herzog knows how to ‘get around’ him. For the record, Bibi did not want him as President nor did he want him in his previous high-flying role.

Bibi’s repositioning may have something to do with the fact that support for the Likud and their allies has plummeted in recent opinion polls. It is the kind of shift – a potentially permanent change – that the country may not have seen since 1977. But more of that another time.

However, I think it has more to do with Bibi’s wife, Sara. Last Wednesday, during the most recent demonstrations in Tel Aviv, word got around that Sara was having her hair styled…..barely a kilometer away from the shouting rabble. Maybe around a thousand people rerouted in order to ‘pay her a visit’.

Sara was blocked in for about three hours, before being evacuated by the police. She claims that she felt threatened, and understandably so. Her son, in an interview the following day, said how he had briefly feared for her life. (Disclosure – neither have a good reputation in much of the local media.)

However, it must also be said that most of the protesters stood across the road. Their most dangerous actions involved shouting slogans. Nobody was arrested. In fact, during the turmoil, WOLT turned up with a delivery of fast food. Maybe young Netanyahu wondered if the food had been poisoned.

And the question remains:

On a day when it was known that Tel Aviv would be swamped by demonstrators, why did the wife of Israel’s Prime Minister deliberately exercise her right to have a haircut down the road from her foes, who are referred to as anarchists by her own supporters? Why? What was so important about the scissors and blow dryer of her stylist?

I have no idea.

I would like to think that maybe, finally at long last, the Netanyahu got to see via the reflections in the mirrors of the hairdressing salon what the average person on the street thinks of their policies.

To translate one of the slogans of last week: “As the country is burning, Sara is having a haircut.”