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23 Tammuz 5760 - July 26, 2000 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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News
Special Committee To Prepare Draft Law Approved

by Eliezer Rauchberger

On 16 Tammuz, the Knesset approved the makeup of a special committee to prepare the proposed Draft Deferral Law for its second and third reading. 37 MKs supported the appointments; there were no negative votes and two abstained. The Special Committee, comprised of representatives of fifteen parties in the Knesset, is headed by the chairman of the Knesset Committee, MK Salach Tarif (Yisrael Achat).

The Knesset has approved the following committee makeup: Salach Tarif, Eli ben Menachem and Maxim Levi (Yisrael Achat); Yuval Steinetz and Michael Eitan (Likud); Yitzhak Cohen and Yair Peretz (Shas); Avshalom Vilan (Meretz); Roni Milo (Mercaz); Tommy Lapid (Shinui); Rabbi Avrohom Ravitz (UTJ); Chaim Druckman (Mafdal); Yuli Edelstein (Yisrael B'Aliyah); Benny Alon (HaIchud HaLeumi); Muchamad Bracha (Chadash).

It was also agreed that MK Rabbi Moshe Gafni would alternate on a permanent basis with MK Yair Peretz from Shas.

A Knesset committee had rejected a petition filed by MK Roni Milo (Mercaz) last week concerning the decision to set up a special committee to prepare the Law for the Deferral of the Draft of Yeshiva Students for its second and third readings. Milo had claimed that the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee should be the one to deliberate on this particular law. He also tried to reverse a decision to appoint the chairman of the Knesset Committee, MK Salach Tarif, as head of the special committee, claiming that the chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee should receive that position.

MK Rabbi Gafni opposed Milo's appeal, claiming that the decision to set up a special committee had been accepted by the Knesset. It was inconceivable for Milo to suddenly wake up and file an appeal, he noted. "Where were you all last week?" Rabbi Gafni asked.

Rabbi Gafni also claimed that in the format in which it was presented by the Government, the law concerns more than the Foreign Affairs and Security Ministry alone. It includes issues other than the draft. "We really wanted a law which focuses only on draft deferrals of yeshiva students. But the current law has additional clauses which we never requested -- pertaining to other committees -- such as the clause regarding the `decision year' or that referring to civil service which applies to the Labor and Welfare Committee. . . . According to Knesset regulations, when such an issue applicable to a number of committees arises, a special committee has always been formed," Rabbi Gafni told Milo.

Milo's claims were rejected, as noted above, as the Knesset approved appointment of the special committee to deal with this issue.


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