Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is a “legitimate” political partner, said former Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen, who earlier in the week announced he was running for the Knesset with Gadi Eisenkot’s centrist Yashar party.

Speaking Saturday with Channel 12 news, Cohen called Smotrich a “Zionist” and a “patriot” who served in the military, stating that “for all these reasons, he is legitimate” even if some of his statements and policies are “immature.”

Smotrich’s far-right Religious Zionism party has consistently been polling under the electoral threshold.

By contrast, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, whose ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit party ran together with Smotrich’s Religious Zionism in the last election, is not a legitimate partner, Cohen insisted.

Ben Gvir, who has previous convictions for incitement to racism and supporting a terrorist organization, was not conscripted because of his extremist background. More recently, he has brandished his own handgun on several occasions and was summoned for a talk by the Knesset security chief in 2021 after he drew a pistol during an argument with Arab parking attendants in Tel Aviv.

Cohen, who announced on Tuesday he was entering politics and joining Eisenkot’s party, said he did so in response to what he called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s failures, warning it will be “catastrophic” for the country if the current government is reelected.

“If I hadn’t seen the behavior of Mr. Netanyahu, of his government, of the failures… of the future risk, I wouldn’t have entered politics,” he said.

Cohen objected to the inclusion in the current government — which is currently advancing an “evasion law” — of “non-Zionist” elements who “do not serve in the army, and send our children to repeated wars while they themselves do not serve,” referring to the........

© The Times of Israel