Dr. Yohanan and Mr. Plesner

A highlighted section of the introduction to the Plesner report says: "The committee's position is that the Tal Law should not be abolished, but policies should be changed to enable coordination of mechanisms already built into the law with the positive processes the ultra-Orthodox population is already going through."

For those who are confused, this isn’t from the Plesner report that was introduced this Wednesday, but from the report that was introduced last year when MK Yohanan Plesner (Kadima) was chairman of the subcommittee of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, which examined the sustainability of the Tal Law. Plesner is still the same Plesner, but the conclusions are entirely different.

Plesner A was free of political pressures. Then, too, the haredim boycotted his committee. He was a member of the leading opposition party. If his report did contain a political interest, it was mainly to embarrass the government and drive a wedge between it and the haredim.

On the other hand, Plesner B is a member of the coalition. His job is to foster agreements that can then be translated into legislative proposals. If he has a political interest, it is supposed to be the continuation of the partnership between Likud and Kadima.

The exact opposite, however, is what has happened. The report released by Plesner A offered a compromise and was accommodating, while Plesner B's report is combative and extreme. Plesner A recommended that the objective should be to draft 65 percent of the haredim; Plesner B raised that to 80 percent. Plesner B declared on Wednesday that yeshiva students should be allowed to postpone enlistment only up to the age of 22, while Plesner A recommended the age of 26. Plesner B has gone on the attack, threatening to abandon the entire deal unless haredim who refuse to enlist have personal financial sanctions imposed on them. Plesner A never even raised such an idea, reasoning that the ultra-Orthodox would serve even without fines and penalties.

Maybe the large gap between the two Plesners shouldn't come as such a surprise. The person advising him over the past few weeks and who has closely accompanied him along the way is former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is also currently an adviser to political hopeful Yair Lapid. Is Olmert trying, through Plesner, to destroy Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition? Or perhaps destroy Mofaz's Kadima? Perhaps there is even a third option, and Olmert is trying to bring Plesner and Lapid together? Time will tell.

In the meantime, Mofaz, too, has learned a lesson in politics. After thinking that by staying in the government he would be abandoned by party rebels, Mofaz understood that there is another side to the coin. The people who comprise the backbone of his party – Dalia Itzik, Zeev Bielski, Tzahi Hanegbi, Avi Dichter and others – notified him that he had better forget about whatever plans he had to quit the coalition.

This — and there is nothing that can be done about it — is part of the Kadima legacy. The appetite for self-destruction is part of the party's genome. Just ask Tzipi Livni and Haim Ramon.

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