TEL AVIV — Israel’s parliament approved Monday night on a first reading several components of the government's judicial overhaul. The approval followed daylong protests throughout Israel, including a mass rally outside the Knesset building in Jerusalem and a march along its walls.

Sixty-three Knesset members voted in favor of two bills limiting the power of the Supreme Court to overturn unconstitutional legislation and offering the government more power in choosing judges. Forty-seven Knesset members rejected the bill, with several other opposition members absent from the plenum.

The vote was the first of three required to turn the two proposals into law, an outcome that appears likely given the coalition government’s rush to anchor the controversial legislation. Like a train hurtling toward an abyss, the fast-track legislative process is being driven by radical ideologues seeking total control of the state’s institutions.

Clearly, nothing fazes Netanyahu these days. Not last week’s plea by President Isaac Herzog to suspend the voting in order to allow negotiations with opponents, nor a flood of warnings by leading Israeli and foreign jurists, Nobel Prize laureates, credit rating agencies, leaders of Israel’s high-tech industry, and many more. Not even the currency depreciation, which saw the shekel-dollar exchange rate plunge from 3.11 shekels when the government took power some seven weeks ago to 3.60 shekels Tuesday morning, have made a dent in Netanyahu’s resolve to weaken the judiciary in a bid to evade a possible conviction of corruption in his ongoing trial.