Free Republic

Israel's parliament on Monday ratified the first bill of a judicial overhaul sought by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after last-gasp compromise efforts collapsed and failed to ease a constitutional crisis convulsing the country for months. The amendment limiting the Supreme Court's powers to void some government decisions if it deemed them "unreasonable" passed by 64-to-0 vote after opposition lawmakers abandoned the session in protest, some of them shouting: "For shame!" Demonstrations against the amendment began early in the day with police dragging away protesters who had chained themselves to posts and blocked the road outside parliament.

Israel and Egypt will aim to boost natural gas exports to Europe under a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed on Wednesday as the continent looks to replace Russian energy imports. The framework deal signed with the European Union (EU) will be the first to allow "significant" exports of Israeli gas to Europe, Israel's energy ministry said.

The U.N. agency that helps Palestinian refugees expressed concern on Friday over moves by the mayor of Jerusalem to close down its operations in the city. Mayor Nir Barkat said on Thursday he had developed a plan to end the Jerusalem operations of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which aids Palestinians displaced by the 1948 war of Israel’s founding and to millions of their descendants, and to replace them with Israeli services. UNRWA has faced a financial crisis since the United States in August announced it was cutting aid to the body, calling it an “irredeemably flawed...