Former chief of Israel’s powerful intelligence agency Mossad, Tamir Pardo is calling out the Israeli government. During a recent interview with Israeli radio station Channel 12, Pardo compared the country’s right-wing coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and America’s racist and terrorist organization, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). The KKK is known for its promotion of white supremacy and hatred of Black people, Jewish people, and any group of people who are not Anglo.

On Nov. 29, 2010, Netanyahu announced the appointment of Pardo as the new Director of Mossad. Pardo started in the role on Jan. 1, 2011. He left his role in 2016 and ​​joined the advisory board of the American NGO United Against Nuclear Iran. That same year, he also founded a tech company with Noam Erez, and Boaz Gorodiski named XM Cyber. The company developed a technology to help other companies improve their cyber defense by simulating organized cyber attacks, CTech by Calcalist reported. 

“Someone took the Ku Klux Klan and brought it into the government, and this is what happened,” Pardo said in the interview. Pardo charged that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is associated with political parties with racist ideas,” and some of the laws proposed by the government “could be characterized as discriminatory and antisemitic if adopted elsewhere in the world.”

In the interview, Pardo argued that some of Netanyahu’s proposed laws could be seen as discriminatory and antisemitic if they were implemented elsewhere in the world. Pardo went as far as accusing Netanyahu of being associated with political parties that espouse racist ideologies, i24 News reported.

“The leader has lost his mind. Nothing that has happened would have happened if the prime minister didn’t lead this process,” Pardo said, claiming it is an “urban legend” that Netanyahu is being led by extremists in the government,  Times of Israel reported.

He named local parties known for extremist views, particularly on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit, which he said was akin to the KKK. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden pose for the media prior to a meeting on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 21, 2016. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)