Shortly before his Michigan primary win was announced, Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed appeared on “Morning Joe” Wednesday, doubling down on his criticism of Israel and calling Israelis “bloodthirsty.”

“I just think we need to treat Israel the way we would treat any other country who behaved the way that Israel is behaving,” he said. “I understand that Netanyahu is a big reason why they’ve gotten so aggressive and, frankly, so bloodthirsty under his reign.”

Critics of El-Sayed agree that Israel should be treated like any country. Even if you believe that Israel is behaving as badly as, say, Sudan, his critics say that we should let Israel receive the same amount of scrutiny and condemnation as Sudan. That would be a nice break for Israel.

He accused Israel of derailing the possibility of a two-state solution without ascribing any agency to the Palestinians.

“But I also understand that it’s impossible for us to say that we want a two-state solution while we’ve been aiding, arming and abetting the very people who have been trying to foreclose on the possibility of a Palestinian state,” he said.

The candidate repeatedly invoked the accusation of apartheid and accused Israel of genocide in his interview, saying his criticism of Israel goes beyond Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“I think we’ve seen the worst of what the Israeli government has done, but don’t forget that we’ve been talking about an illegal apartheid regime for a very, very long time, and that supersedes Netanyahu himself,” he said.

Israel has “conducted a genocide, has at baseline done apartheid and has taken us into a war we have no business fighting. So why, of course, are we sending money to that country to fund their military?” he added.

On foreign aid, he said he was consistent: He doesn’t want our tax dollars to go to Israel, but he also doesn’t want to send aid to Egypt, where he himself is from.

Addressing the concerns of Jewish voters on antisemitism, he said that his “commitment to Jewish safety is the same as my commitment to the safety of my own kids. We have a responsibility to take on antisemitism in all of its forms wherever we see it. It’s the same responsibility we have to take on Islamophobia. … So the things that bring us together are so much bigger than the things that divide us.”