Environment Protection Minister Idit Silman said in a podcast interview this week that the new U.S.-Iran understanding signed in Versailles is “not a good agreement,” but she rejected the idea that it represents a failure by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. She said she had come to value Netanyahu “more than anything” and argued that Israel must rely on itself, not others, when dealing with the deal and its consequences.
Pressed on whether she trusts U.S. President Donald Trump after his apparent reversal, Silman said she trusts only the Israeli prime minister and Israeli leaders. She said the government’s push for domestic production and for Israel to “take its fate into its own hands” is the right path. The interview took place with Barak Seri and Yehuda Schlesinger.
A major part of the conversation focused on her former political partner, former prime minister Naftali Bennett. Silman said she stands by all of her comments about him, insisted she was not referring to psychiatric medication in recordings that circulated about him, and challenged him to release his medical file. She said Netanyahu had opened his own medical record and added that her own file is open as well, saying, “I have never taken psychiatric medication.”
Silman also defended her political move that helped bring down the Bennett-Lapid government. She rejected claims that she is one of Israel’s most hated women, said she was always in the ideological right camp, and argued that she “saved the State of Israel,” claiming the country would have collapsed on October 7 under a Bennett-Lapid government because Mansour Abbas would not have allowed fighting in Gaza, Lebanon, or the West Bank.
She said her relations with Arab Knesset members in that government were strictly formal and criticized Yesh Atid MK Meirav Ben Ari over what she described as crude sexual insinuations about her and Abbas in the Knesset plenum. Looking ahead to Likud primaries, Silman praised Sara Netanyahu as “an amazing woman” and said she feels she is experiencing the same hostile treatment. She dismissed rumors of reserved spots for family members, but said Yair Netanyahu could be an excellent politician if he chose to run.
