Likud minister says far-right Strock would have been able to prevent October 7 if she were in charge

During a contentious cabinet debate on boosting the IDF’s wartime manpower, Environment Minister Idit Silman reportedly calls for the appointment of Haredim to senior positions in the military and insists that far-right Settlement and National Projects Minister Orit Strock would have been able to prevent October 7 if she had been in charge of the IDF.

As the coalition debates a proposed measure to lengthen men’s mandatory military service to three years, Silman declares that if Strock “were the IDF chief of staff then there wouldn’t have been October 7,” according to a report in the Walla news site.

Strock, of the Religious Zionism party, was filmed last night telling settler leaders that she was delighted by the “miracle period” of settlement expansion during the current government.

Silman, who was previously elected with the Jewish Home party before joining Likud after the collapse of the last government, also reportedly accuses the opposition of hypocrisy for opposing the current Haredi enlistment bill.

“All those who were members of the previous government are hypocrites,” the Hebrew daily Maariv reports Silman as saying. “When I was the chairman of the [previous] coalition, I [advanced] the conscription law, the exact same law, everyone was in favor of it and today they are suddenly against it.”

Members of the opposition say the previous legislation is no longer relevant in the wake of the IDF manpower deficit amid the ongoing war.

Turning to representatives of the ultra-Orthodox parties, Silman calls on them to “bring holiness to the IDF. You need to be in senior positions, including in the General Staff.”