Senior coalition officials continued today, Thursday, to formulate a plan to allow the 2019 budget ti be approved before Pesach and the draft law to be amended, both in ways that are acceptable to the haredi factions.
They are currently attempting to formulate an outline that will be acceptable to the Attorney General on the one hand, and will also be approved when Deputy Health Minister Litzman presents it to the Council of Torah Sages of Agudat Israel.
Among other things, the plan is expected to include a target of 3,800 army and civil service conscripts from the haredi sector. The number will rise during each annual recruitment cycle. Failure to meet the target will lead to cancellation of the law, and assessment of successful recruitment will be carried out every five years. Sanctions imposed in that case would be mainly economic.
Coalition talks are proceeding under the specter of the Prime Minister's demand that coalition factions find a satisfactory solution to the crisis that ensures the government's survival until the end of its term.
Sources claimed this morning that Netanyahu is "drunk on election poll results" and is trying to leverage the recruitment crisis as the excuse for a quick election campaign.
A Ma'agar Mochotsurvey conducted this week for Israel Hayom, shows that if the elections were held today, the Likud would receive 34 Knesset seats.
Yesh Atid, the second largest party and the main challenger in the left-wing bloc against the Likud, headed by Yair Lapid, would win 24 Knesset seats.
The Zionist Union party, which today has 24 seats, would drop to 10 seats, and the Joint Arab List (13) would drop to 10 seats. The Sephardic-haredi Shas party would not pass the electoral threshold.
Meanwhile, the Jewish Home party would receive 14 Knesset seats, up from its current 8, and the Ashkenazic-haredi UTJ party, which currently has 6 Knesset seats, would rise to 8 seats. Defense Minister Liberman's Yisrael Beytenu party would retain its current five seats.