Israeli prosecutors on Tuesday announced their intent to charge Bezalel Zini, brother of Shin Bet director David Zini, following Bezalel’s arrest two weeks ago on suspicion of running an operation that smuggled hundreds of thousands worth of cigarettes into the Gaza Strip, Ynet reports.
“It is important that the public know that no tanks or drones were smuggled, otherwise people will believe the rumors that are published online. I have found it permissible to publish the nature of the suspicions, in order to dispel the heavy cloud surrounding the suspicions,” said Judge Yaniv Ben Harosh, and yes this is all translated by Google if you’re wondering why it’s so janky but holy shit.
“Everything is fake, we are without fear of anything. They don’t want to bring him down, but his brother [David]. Thank God the public understands this well,” said the Zinis’ father, Rabbi Yosef. Well guess it wasn’t MAGA-inspired enough for the son of a bitch connected to the Netanyahu Regime’s Israeli version of the FBI to be profiting by supplying a black market controlled by Hamas without his not-actually-an-Evangelical-pastor dad to be calling it fake news and a Deep State plot.
Volumes could be written about how much this one asshole’s scheme says about the entire right wing ethno-religious authoritarian mindset and how it operates day-to-day in Israel, the US, and everywhere else its scourge wiggles its way into power. No need to be all preachy about cigarettes and health. Of course regular Gazans suffering horrifically for decades and exponentially moreso over the last two years should be permitted a few smokes a day to ease the unimaginable stresses inflicted by the IDF’s genocidal campaign. Also even set aside whether or not anyone else is implicated, Bezalel is good enough for now, and no, he’s not some kind of peace activist libtard black sheep and the scheme was to bankroll a massive color revolution in Israel to finally end the conflict or whatever. He’s a hardcore zealot who leads an extremist West Bank settler militia.
It’s as simple as saying that politically he’s all for inflicting suffering on the Palestinian people but when there’s a few bucks to be made on the side selling them cartons of smokes then fuck it, why not? He already was in and out of Gaza anyway since Netanyahu’s regime hired him to lead a demolition crew based on previous experience leveling people’s houses in the West Bank.