It must scare the leftists to no end that more than half of the mid-level combat officers are religious, many from the Hesder system.
It must scare the leftists that a significant percent of combat soldiers are religious soldiers, dedicated to a Torah based value system which they can’t seem to eradicate or weaken.
It must scare the leftists that, unlike they’re forbears in the Kibbutz movement who actually served in combat units and ruled the army, these new leftists have not only abandoned the IDF but also attack and try to weaken the IDF, while these religious Jews that are serving today in the IDF are the ones who will be inheriting the IDF mantle and keeping it strong.
The whole situation has probably created a lot of consternation for the modern Leftist.
On one hand, they’re trying to tear the Haredim away from the Yeshiva, and hoping the army will do its part to rip away Torah from the Haredim, while on the other hand, they are scared senseless by the utter success of Hesder Torah students who have taken on such important roles within the army, and are helping reshape it – and not only remain religiously strong but ensure the army respects religious requirements (which, trust me, it didn’t always do).
So when you realize that despite an initial shorter active service (not counting the additional 3.5 years within the army system as non-active soldiers), Hesder student-soldiers are ultimately bearing more than their share of the burden, these attacks on Hesder begin to make a lot of sense – when you put them into context of the larger battle.
The Left want a weakened IDF, so they must weaken this strong core group of dedicated, religious soldiers and officers.
And as the Left sees the army as a weapon to secularize Haredim, Hesder is clearly a threat to that plan.
If the Left want their plan to destroy Haredi society via the IDF to succeed, they need to dismantle Hesder and the small but strong, healthy core of loyal, dedicated, religious soldiers, officers and citizens it creates every year.
After all, there’s nothing more dangerous in the mind of a Leftist than a religious Jew who believes in what he is doing for his nation.
H/T Rav Eliezer Melamed who provided many of the stats used in this post.