Many of them are Israeli citizens as well as US citizens. Many of the people in this crowd were born in Israel. Every single one of them has close family in Israel.
Many of them want to study at yeshivas in Israel, and where they study and whom they study under has a big impact on who and how well they are able to marry.
If they go to Israel to study at those yeshivas, the Israeli Defense Forces could just draft them in and put their education on hold.
Their entire lifestyle and career path, they feel, is being threatened.
That would be lovely for them if Israel were not fighting a daily battle for its mere survival.
Parasites.
As for most of the rest of you (no, not you, onedoug), I am disgusted at some of the things you have posted here. It's funny. FReepers always beat their chests about being "pro-Jewish" and how "conservatives are the Jews' best friends," but every time an article is posted about the so-called "ultra-Orthodox" (which, btw, is an insult, like "illiterate inbred trailer park redneck") I notice it's just bash, bash, bash.
First of all--you people (like the liberals) "support the Jews" only on your own terms, not on the terms of the Torah. You need to get it through your heads that Orthodox Jews are not "old testament proto-chrstians" or the "cub scouts" to the chrstians' "boy scouts." Chrstians do not get to define Judaism. You are outside Judaism looking in. You have as much right defining Judaism as an atheist or a "jain" (just for example) has defining chrstianity.
Try to understand this: the State of Israel founded in 1948 is not the prophesied Jewish State in the TaNa"KH. It is a secular state with a president, a prime minister, a parliament, and political parties--all of which are alien to the Torah. It is a liberal, western, hellenistic state. It is full of liberals and socialists and "gays" and abortionists. It is not a Jewish government. The Torah and the Torah alone defines a Jewish government, and it is nothing like any of our modern systems (or like any other ancient system). Modern Zionism was from the outset a typical secular European nationalist ideology just like Irish Republicanism or the nationalist movements among the Czechs, Bulgarians, Greeks, Armenians, Poles, etc. Even the non-socialist conservative Zionists were secular. And the socialist Zionists (like Ben Gurion, though he certainly wasn't as far left as most world socialist leaders) thought that Orthodox Judaism would disappear from the earth in a few years.
Understand this as well: studying Torah is the highest Jewish duty. Only a liberal or a modernist or an atheist would be so blind as to refuse to see that the safety of the Jews depends on HaShem alone, and it is always safest to follow HaShem's instructions and study Torah than to defy them. Who knows how many calamities have been averted by these "parasites" (as one of you so charmingly put it) studying Torah continually? Looks like a lot of FReepers are rationalists who don't believe in the supernatural.
All Orthodox Jews, whether Zionist, anti-Zionist, or ambivalent, love the Land of Israel. The Land of Israel has a sanctity that no other land has, and even the most anti-Zionist Chasid in the world (except maybe Neturei Karta' who are nuts) loves both the Land and the Jews who live there. A secular western government has nothing to do with it. No secular government, whether non-Jewish or "Jewish," has the right to forbid Jews to visit or live there. And as for Joshua, he was named by G-d Himself as Moses' successor. No Israeli politician or government member has the Halakhic authority that he did.
Please get it through your heads that these Jews, while certainly withdrawn and "provincial," primarily refuse the draft because it conflicts with their beliefs about Torah, not just because they would "meet other people."
Then we have those nasty posts about dual loyalty, "Jewish supremacism," and the "kabbalah" (meaning Jews should turn from their eeee-vil religion and "git SAVED!!!" when you chrstians can't even all agree on what that means!). Not to mention nasty posts about them being "obamabots" or "anti-gun" or for "big government." I'm sorry to be so blunt, but you people literally don't have the slightest idea what Judaism is about. You're no different than a mormon whose only use for historical chrstianity is as proto-mormonism.
As if conservatives and especially sincere religious chrstians aren't slandered and libeled every single day by the liberal media. But some of you here take advantage of every article about "ultra-Orthodox" Jews to do the exact same thing while hyocritically claiming to be "lovers of the Jewish People" and "the Jews' best friends." Is it any wonder so few of them trust you when you give the lie to your claims every time an article like this gets posted?
One final word: these particular Orthodox Jews are withdrawn and provincial because they actually live in a Theocracy--and a Theocracy that is totalistic, regulating every activity in life and of the day. Every single Orthodox Jew lives a life that combines what in chrstianity is divided up between laypeople and monks. They live regular productive lives and recite set prayers at their times like chrstians can only find time for in monasteries. None of you could handle it. And furthermore, compared to these people, most FReepers are G-dless Communists. You're so addicted to the eighteenth century rationalist "enlightenment" that you wouldn't even let G-d tell you what to do!
Some of the comments on this thread are objectively disgusting and show their authors as ugly and evil (or at least ignorant) people.
I know I shouldn't be surprised any more, but sometimes I forget that most of you don't mean what you say about how "pro-Jewish" you are.
too bad