Faced with increasing pressure from much of the world over Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and the sprawling humanitarian disaster that resulted, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invoked a vision of a vanished Greek city-state.

With some Western governments restricting weapons transfers to Israel, the country must adopt a “super Sparta” mentality in the face of increasing isolation, summoning the famed self-reliance and martial resolve of ancient Sparta to boost the Israeli arms industry and hunker down, Netanyahu said in a September address.