Yashar No. 2 Yoram Cohen declines to commit to keeping Zini as Shin Bet chief

Incoming Yashar MK Yoram Cohen, a former director of the Shin Bet, says he will look into current spy agency chief David Zini’s decisions around the election before deciding whether to keep him.

“We will weigh his actions, check the material, see the justifications for what he did,” says Cohen, who is No. 2 in the centrist opposition party, behind Gadi Eisenkot, in an interview with Channel 12.

Cohen says Zini is operating “unprofessionally” and that the Shin Bet head is being used by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who appointed him.

At the same time, Cohen says that he is “convinced that the Shin Bet received information that certain people were given money, and that must be investigated.”

Cohen warns that senior officials in Israel’s security agencies must “raise a black flag” if security chiefs tell them to do things that seem illegal around the elections and a subsequent change of government.