Former Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen joins Eisenkot’s Yashar party

Gadi Eisenkot announces that former Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen is the latest to join his Yashar party, praising Cohen’s extensive security experience and morality.

“Yoram, my friend, brings with him more than 35 years of rich security experience and expertise in all matters related to national security. He is a professional, statesmanlike and ethical voice that represents the type of leadership that Yeshar offers to the people of Israel. Leadership of responsibility and integrity; of results, not of slogans,” Eisenkot says in a statement.

“Israel is facing major security and social challenges, which if navigated and handled incorrectly by leadership, as it is today, could bring us to the brink of collapse. In the face of the magnitude of the hour, I decided to respond to the emergency call-up order issued by my friend Gadi,” says Cohen.

“I am joining the Yashar party today because I see my friend, Gadi, as the right man at the right time and in the right place to lead the State of Israel,” he adds.

The pair is scheduled to hold a press conference in Tel Aviv this evening at 6 p.m.

Cohen served as head of the Shin Bet from 2011 to 2016 under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and has since become a fierce critic of the sitting premier. He was one of several former top security officials to decry verbal attacks on the Shin Bet by Netanyahu’s associates and has accused the prime minister of misusing the security agency for political purposes.

Last year, Cohen said Netanyahu once asked him to “disqualify” his political rival Naftali Bennett from his security cabinet by revoking his security clearance, citing a case of an unspecified “loyalty problem.” Netanyahu’s office denied the story and accused Cohen of making it up.

Cohen has also claimed that during his tenure, Netanyahu asked him more than once to carry out “illegitimate acts,” such as requesting that he wiretap the government’s top defense officials to ensure that they were not leaking information from a particularly sensitive security meeting.

Cohen follows former religious services minister Matan Kahana, ex-Blue and White MK Orit Farkash-Hacohen, former Finance Ministry budget chief Shaul Meridor, and former chief of staff to three welfare ministers and social policy adviser Inbar Yehezkeli in joining Yashar.