Malaysia announced this Friday the arrest of an Israeli who was in possession of six automatic pistols and two hundred cartridges, in a hotel in Ampang, on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur. The police are trying to find out if the 36-year-old individual works for the intelligence services of Israel, a country with which Malaysia does not maintain diplomatic relations.
The Malaysian Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim, is one of the heads of government most critical of the Israeli invasion of Gaza, which is why the police have increased their security detail, as well as that of King Ibrahim. “Because of the Palestine-Israel issue,” acknowledged the Inspector General of Police, Tan Sri Razarudin Husain. He revealed that, “during the arrest last Wednesday, the investigation seized six pistols, six of them loaded.”
The police department sees the explanation given by the subject to justify his arsenal as an alibi. According to him, he had landed in Kuala Lumpur on March 12 with a French passport on a flight from the Emirates, with the intention of killing a relative over a family dispute. Investigations have revealed that he acquired all the weapons once in Malaysia, using cryptocurrencies and that he had stayed overnight in at least three hotels. Given the amount of firearms and ammunition, the inspector general estimates that he must have collaborators in the country and his contacts are being investigated.
Anwar Ibrahim’s government has taken the lead in sympathy for the Palestinian cause, which is widespread among Malaysians. The prime minister has not held his tongue either at the Asia-Pacific summit in San Francisco, or more recently, at a joint press conference with Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Since last December, Malaysia has banned the use of its ports by Israeli-flagged ships, as well as the stowage of any ship bound for Israel. The measure has mainly affected the Israeli shipping company ZIM, one of the most important in the world, to which Malaysia opened its ports, despite the absence of diplomatic contacts, in 2002.
The queen also met with Palestinian students this month, telling them that “Malaysia provides young people with the opportunity to receive an education and live in a safe environment.”
Malaysian alarm over the latest arrest may be less exaggerated than it seems. Malaysia, like Turkey, stands out for its welcome of Hamas members and other Sunni exiles into the same orbit of the Muslim Brotherhood.
In September 2022, two Palestinian computer scientists (from Gaza) were assaulted in Kuala Lumpur while returning to the car after dining out. One of them was kidnapped, put in a van and taken to a safe house, where he would have been interrogated by videoconference from Israel.
The operation, however, was a botch, since the Malaysian kidnappers – presumably trained in Europe by the Mossad – should have kidnapped the two Hamas militants and, in fact, the big fish was the one they let free. It took him less than forty minutes to file a complaint.
When the police broke into that safe house, the computer scientist had suffered several hours of torture, while the remote interrogation was still underway. No less than eleven people involved or suspected of being involved in the kidnapping, all of them Malaysians, were paraded before the cameras upon entering the court a few days later.
In another operation, in 2018, a Palestinian scientist was shot dead in Kuala Lumpur and his family blamed Mossad. Not in vain, he was a member of Hamas specialized in the manufacture of projectiles and drones.
Malaysia and Indonesia, which have a total of 310 million inhabitants, make up one of the corners of the planet where the Israeli invasion of southern Palestine has created the most indignation, in retaliation for the Hamas raid on October 7. To silence the Indonesian authorities, a Jewish media outlet reported that, a couple of weeks before that, Jakarta had begun exploratory talks, which this year were to lead to mutual recognition (Indonesia and Malaysia already recognize Palestine).
When the outgoing president, Joko Widodo, denied it, Israel leaked a group photo “in Jerusalem” of its chief of staff, Andi Widjajanto, with Ronen Levy, a former Shin Bet spy, Arabic speaker and specialized in Gaza. Ultimately, facilitator of the Abraham Accords, before being promoted almost to the top of the Foreign Ministry, at the request of the then head – and former Minister of Intelligence – Eli Cohen, of Moroccan origin.
