rumor has it..

UPDATE: Haaretz just posted on their site an article saying pretty much what I wrote last night, confirming a draft of an agreement. Either they stole the info from my blog or the rumors are correct.
Don't forget - you heard it here first...
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The rumor going around the "yeshivishe velt" right now is that El Al has come to an agreement with The Haredi leaders. This rumor is uncomfirmed and unsubstantiated, but is going around nonetheless, so I bring it to you.

Supposedly, El Al and the organization given authority by Rav Elyashiv to deal with leading the Haredi charge against El Al have come to an agreement and have signed letters of intent. They, supposedly, are still working out the small details of the agreement, but the main issues have been resolved and agreed upon.

I do not know what all the details are, but the rumor is that the main part of the deal is that El Al agrees not to fly commercial flights under the El Al name on shabbos. They will continue (as they did before) to fly under the SunDor name and will fly non-commercial flights on shabbos, along with grounds crew and other staff continuing to work on shabbos.

Basically, if the rumor is true, little has changed in how El Al will be working and/or resting on sghabbos, but the agreement of not flying using the El Al name probably has more teeth to it and probably includes some sort of penalty of they do.

I find it amusing, if the rumors are true, that the Rabbonim will now be much more involved in hillul shabbos than they were before. Prior to the alleged agreement, El Al, a secular company, would not fly on shabbos unless there was a situation they considered an emergency. The haredi world did not like it, but bit their lips and let it be. Now, if the rumor os true, the Rabbonim are signing a paper allowing El Al to do all sorts of hillul shabbos, except for actually flying under the El Al name. Basically the hillul shabbos now has the hechsher of the Rabbonim.

Or maybe the rumor is not true...