BICOM

Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon and MK Yohanan Plesner (Kadima) met Sunday to discuss the first draft of Israel’s new universal conscription law. The legislation that comes out of their two-day discussions is expected to replace the outgoing Tal Law, which provided ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students with a framework for exemption from national service. The measure was struck down by the High Court earlier this year as unconstitutional, and so it cannot be renewed when it expires on 1 August.

Plesner had headed a committee to draft the new legislation before Netanyahu dissolved the panel earlier last week. Plesner released the committee’s recommendations on Wednesday, against the PM’s wishes. Consequently, Netanyahu said his Likud party would support much of those recommendations. Likud’s decision to back the commission’s recommendations, and following intense negotiations between Kadima and Likud this weekend, the possibility of a coalition crisis appears to have been headed off.

Over the next two days, Ya’alon and Plesner are expected to complete the universal draft proposal on the basis of the findings of the Plesner committee’s report and present it to the Ministerial Committee for Legislation.

In his weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday morning, Netanyahu promised the new legislation to replace the Tal Law would mark a substantive change. “What was is not what will be. Neither the state nor the military nor the society can go on in the current course,” he said.

In related news, Some 20,000 people attended a rally in Tel Aviv Saturday night to demand a universal draft that would include ultra-Orthodox Jews and Israeli Arabs. The rally was attended by many public figures, including former IDF chiefs of staff, heads of the security services and politicians.