Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s nominee to be the next head of the Shin Bet, Maj. Gen. David Zini, was told by the security agency that it had accumulated intelligence on one of Zini’s relatives regarding extremist activity in the West Bank, according to a Wednesday report.

Zini was told by a senior officer in the Shin Bet’s Jewish Division, which investigates Israeli settler violence and other Jewish nationalist crime, that it had gathered “disturbing information” concerning a “very close relative” of his during an investigation into Jewish extremist activities in the West Bank, Channel 12 reported.

The phone call took place just before Netanyahu announced his intention to appoint Zini as the next chief of the domestic intelligence service in May, the report said.

The report said that Zini was asked to reach out to his relative to “calm things down,” and to keep a close eye on the family member.

According to the report, it is common practice within the Shin Bet’s Jewish Division to call family members of those suspected of involvement in extremist activities and violence in the West Bank to warn them of their relatives’ actions and to advise close monitoring of the individual within the family.

The report did not specify the “very........

© The Times of Israel