Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced during a meeting this week of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee that the government plans to approve, during next Sunday's cabinet meeting, another five-year extension of the law providing for IDF deferments for full-time yeshiva students and avreichim. However on Wednesday Netanyahu announced that he would first discuss the bill with each of his coalition partners.
Netanyahu said the law would be passed as-is, and that the government would recommend that the Knesset also pass it without introducing any changes. Defense Minister Ehud Barak said during a meeting of the Atzma'ut faction in the Knesset that the law should be renewed for only one year, during which "concerted efforts would be made to reach a whole new arrangement on the issue."
The law was originally legislated in the Knesset 10 years ago, and was renewed without any changes five years ago.
