I think that both sides have the unfortunate habit of conflating their different points/claims/arguments/beliefs which (can) lead to the feeling that the other side is arguning in bad faith (which in some case is true!)
The universal army service proponents arguments include:
1) The unfairness of not taking part in their sacrifices for the country i.e. everyone needs to serve.
2) The need for manpower for the army.
3) Chareidim need to work and not study torah all day, rely on the public dole, ect....
The Chareidim on the other hand argue (some or all of the following depending where you are on the chareidi spectrum)
1) Torah study is the supreme value and some who is devoted to it should not be requiered to take part in any other activity that will detract from it.
2) The army enviroment in not appropriate for a "Ben Torah".
3) Denial of the right of the state to mandate service (This ranges from denial of the states right to mandate anything to the states duty to recognize my minority rights)
These are all seperate arguments, and its not really effective to justify one claim by leaning on the second as backup..
The chareidi response to each of the proponents claims are different too:
1) The unfairness of not taking part in their sacrifices for the country i.e. everyone needs to serve.
The Chareidi says "You have a value, and it is not a value to me, I have other values which I find much more important, do what you want and leave me alone" To which the proponents repeat, like a mantra, "but it's not fair (that you don't do what I want according to my values!)". At the end of the day the chareidi says that's a
you problem not a
me problem, while most of the general population are stuck, like a broken CD, on"Its not fair", never acnologing that the chareidi's right to his own different values.
2) The need for manpower for the army in peace/war.
Your inability to manage your army's logistics and/or manpower properly, is not really our issue (especially since we see no intrinsic value in service and see value in doing other things with our time). Sort yourselves out, cut the fat, trim the waste and then we can talk about you require our service or whether this is just a bad faith argument to support claims one and three.
Your strategic errors in outsourcing support roles to sectors ill suited for reliability during time of conflict is not an arguement in favor of forcing us to do it. (BTW why do you think that the army won't have similar reliability problems with chariedi support staff? Your (the armies) standard of Pikuach Nefesh needed to be mechalel shabbos comes nowhere close to what you would need for a chareidi to do it - [as heard from chardal freinds and relatives who served]);
This also leads to general questioning if the current method of staffing the army is the most effective one, or is it just becuase of claim one?
What gives you a better fighting force, with maximum use of available resorces: A proffesional army made up of career soldiers who spend years training plus a reserve core of, or an army where you are constantly training new recruits just for them to to serve in active service for a year or two? What gives you a better support team - profesionals who do it for years or new recruits all the time? Who would you rather have in the alley with Shireen Abu Akleh? or guarding a checkpoint? A kid just out of basic training or someone who has trained all his life for that moment?
3) Chareidim need to work and not study torah all day, rely on the public dole, ect....
The army is for fighting wars, not solving your perception of our need for job training. If that is really needed, there are other, less objectionable ways to do that.
This has nothing to do with army service, and while it has it's time and place to be discussed ,should not be conflated into the army service argument, unless your argument is a general "chareidim are parasites"
Bl"n i will breakdown the chareidi claims when i have a bit more time
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