July 2, 2012
Netanyahu disbands haredi draft committee
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on July 1. Photo by REUTERS/Abir Sultan/Pool
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu disbanded the committee charged with formulating a new law on haredi Orthodox military service.
The dissolution of the Plesner Committee comes after the resignation of several of its members, including from the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party.
“Unfortunately, the Plesner Committee did not succeed in reaching an agreed-upon outline and it cannot formulate recommendations that would achieve a majority in the Knesset,” he said, according to Israeli reports.
In February, the Israeli Supreme Court declared that the Tal Law, which allowed haredim to defer service indefinitely, to be unconstitutional, and set Aug. 1 as the deadline for a new law to be passed.
Netanyahu said that if the Knesset does not pass a new law by the deadline, the military would formulate its own solution.
The largest party in the Knesset, Kadima, joined Netanyahu’s governing coalition in May with the stated objective of formulating a new military service law.
