Yesterday we previewed the judicial overhaul that Israel’s government is planning, and last night the first of the votes passed the parliament. The country’s Supreme Court will no longer be able to overrule government decisions that don’t pass the legal standard of “reasonableness”, which has long served as a check-and-balance on government power. It might sound like a wonky legal clause, but both sides have been treating the reforms as a fight over Israel’s identity… Secular Israelis see the reforms as an attack on democracy, while religious Israelis think the court stands in the way of the right-wing parliament’s power (paywall). Emerging from the hospital just in time for the vote – with a new pacemaker to boot – was Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He will need all the fortitude he can get, with Israel’s President Isaac Herzog warning that the division in the country has turned into “a national emergency”.