"By way of deception thou shalt make war", so reads the motto of Mossad, Israel's notorious spy agency. For 70 years, deception has been its staple diet. Cloned foreign passports, disguises, abductions and drive-by killings on foreign soil are its tradecraft.
But hubris does sometimes bring the master of deception down to earth as it happened in January 2010, when 27 Mossad operatives were caught by closed-circuit television cameras at a luxury hotel in Dubai changing disguises as they pursued their prey, alleged arms dealer Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.
Despite the drama, al-Mabhouh was poisoned and his body left behind to be discovered by room service. The massive mess up eventually led to a diplomatic spat between London and Tel Aviv. Any other regime would have learned from it, but not the recalcitrant Zionist regime. Instead, it has gone public to say Mossad's kill operations are part of state policy, with Tel Aviv's highest court ruling that targeted killings aren't justiciable acts.
Less outlandishly and more recently on Sept 28, and with no sign of a diplomatic spat, Mossad agents, with 11 Malaysians on its payroll, attempted to abduct two Palestinians in the dying hours of the night in Jalan Yap Kwan Seng in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, but bungled it by allowing one to escape.
Thanks to him and the police's quick action, the second Palestinian was saved as he was being beaten by Mossad operatives and interrogated over the phone by Mossad handlers. Another boast punctured? Perhaps.
But Malaysia must acknowledge that Mossad is getting more blatant. Four years ago in April, Mossad was similarly blatant, when two of its operatives on a motorcycle killed Palestinian professor Fadi Mohamed al-Batsh in a hail of bullets as he headed to a mosque for prayers in Kuala Lumpur.
If tradecraft is anything to go by, it's written Mossad all over. For a master of deception, Mossad, in a moment of boastful inattention, does leave behind a decipherable pattern. Just like Ronen Bergman writes in Rise and Kill First, a hubris-busting book on Mossad, Shin Bet and Aman.
Since World War 2, Tel Aviv has assassinated more people than any country in the Western world, he declares. Malaysian officials didn't name the spy agency, but said the suspects in the drive-by killing in 2018 had links to a foreign intelligence agency.
The Zionist regime's excuse is it only kills Palestinians with Hamas links, but not all are so linked. Tel Aviv has convinced itself and its allies that it must kill to survive. A nation such as this resorts to anything to justify its killing operations even if they are executed 7,600km away in Kuala Lumpur.
Malaysia needs to be more vigilant than before, especially with the Jewish state recently declaring that it would target people with links to Hamas even if they are in Malaysia. Now that Malaysians are running an Israeli spy ring, just keeping a watch on who comes in and goes out of the country isn't going to be enough.
The shekel has trumped over loyalty to the nation. It will next attempt to trump national security and sovereignty. We must shackle the shekel before it does us. Malaysia mustn't allow Tel Aviv to bring its Middle Eastern problems here.