Six  Israeli ex-spymasters accused PM Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday of jeopardizing the country’s future as it prepares to celebrate the 70th anniversary of its founding next month, Reuters reported.

The surviving ex-Mossad intelligence agency chiefs voiced their opinion of the fourth-term, right-wing leader in a joint interview excerpted on the front page of Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s best-selling newspaper and a regular Netanyahu critic.

Netanyahu had no immediate response, but a senior member of his governing coalition brushed off the censure.

Danny Yatom, who headed the Mossad during Netanyahu’s first stint in office in the late 1990s, called for his ouster, accusing him and his aides of “putting their interests ahead of national interests” as corruption investigations deepen.

Yatom also voiced concern about “the inertia in the diplomatic sphere, which is leading us toward a bi-national state (with the Palestinians), which would spell the end of (Israel as) a Jewish and democratic state”.

“We have children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren here, and I want them to live in a healthy country - and the country is sick,” Zvi Zamir, Mossad director from 1968 to 1974, was quoted as saying by Yedioth.

“We are in a critical medical state. It could be that the country had symptoms when Netanyahu took over, but he has brought it to the grave condition of a malignant disease.”