I know I’m late to the game, but there’s a couple of points that have been brought up here that I’d like to address:
1)The Charaidim should serve in the army out of hakaroa hatov, to “give back” to the State.
According to that logic, why shouldn’t all those of us living in America have to enlist in the US Army to sow our hakaros hatov to America?
2) It is hypocritical for the Charaidim to take government aid while not serving in the army.
First of all, one must realize that there are two major groups/ideologies within the Charaidim: The Badatz and the Agudah. The Badatz believes that due to its utter lack of respect for Hashem and his Torah, the Medina is inherently evil, and that cooperating with it in any way is shituf li’minus. Therefore they do not accept any government aid, vote in elections, etc.
The Agudah holds that while the Medina is not run al pi Torah right now, one should try to work within the system to try to improve it (ie, vote for the Charaidi parties.) Since they do not hold that one may not give any legitimacy to the State they take the aid that they, just like every other law-abiding, tax-paying citizen, are entitled to. However, they do not serve in the army (primarily due to bittul Torah, but also because they do not believe the Israeli Army is good environment for a Charaidi Jew to be in) so they, due to Israeli law, cannot work. The Israeli government made these rules; the Charaidim are just playing by them.
3) Serving in the army is not bittul Torah because it is a mitzva
We (= Rambam, Shulchan Orach, etc) hold that one should not stop learning to perform a mitzva she’efshar laasos al yidai acharim, a mitzva that can be done by somebody else. The chilonim are doing jus fine manning the army by themselves; they do not need any help from the Charaidim (or the Mizrach, for that matter). Therefore, al pi halacha there is no reason to stop learning and go to the army.