Ram Ben-Barak, a member of parliament representing the Yesh Atid party and former deputy director of Israel’s Mossad, told the Maariv newspaper that his country is “not North Korea and we do not want to become a pariah state in front of the entire world, but we are heading in this direction”, Al Jazeera reports.

“We won this war about a year ago, excellently, much better than we expected, and every day that passes, we undermine this achievement,” Ben-Barak said.

“If we do not take real steps, we will soon need visas to enter Europe – and they will not grant them to us either,” he added. “Whoever wants to live this way, let them support this government.”