Today the Committee for Shivyon bNetel headed by MK Ayelet Shaked (Habayit Hayehudi) approved MK Elazar Stern's (Hatnua) proposal to regard Chabad service as shluchim around the world as civil service in place of army service. It would be done according to pre-established criteria and the participating Chabadniks would earn recognition from Israel.

Strangely enough, MK Moshe Gafni (UTJ) opposed the proposal and voted against..

According to Gafni, considering Chabad service as civil service shows hypocrisy and anti-haredi approach in the government. Gafni said that all these years his suggestion to consider volunteers in various chessed organizations of the Haredi community (e.g. Zaka, Hatzolah, and others) to be civil service. It was always rejected because they would say the organizations, as great as the work they do is, need to be a part of the system in order to be recognized. And now it turns out that it does not really need to be a part of the system - they just never wanted the Haredim.

Gafni then says because he is against the law (of shivyon bnetel), so he wants Stern's proposal to fail as well. He then accused them of hypocrisy saying that nobody argues about the contribution of the Chabadnis, and nobody argues about the contribution of the haredi chessed organizations, but that is not the issue - they just dont want haredim...
(source: Kooker)



Dont want haredim? so why put Chabad into the program? True, Chabad is not exactly the same as Degel, but Chabad makes no bones about their focus on kiruv - so the anti-haredi Israeli government that doesnt want haredim should really not want Chabadniks either... but they do. And the difference is that Chabad wanted to be part of the civil service program, while the haredi chessed organizations want to remain independent.