Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. on Thursday compared congressional efforts to block U.S. weapons transfers to Israel to the antisemitic “blood libel,” the false accusation that medieval Jews used the blood of Christian children to cook Passover matzah — and he took aim at Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) for leading the charge.

Speaking at a Rosh Hashanah reception at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, Ambassador Yechiel Leiter said in a fiery speech that Democratic proposals in Congress to restrict military aid to Israel during its ongoing conflict amounted to “a modern-day blood libel,” and warned that the rhetoric could have deadly consequences.

“I was told that if we really wanted to, we would feed the Gazans appropriately,” Leiter said of a recent conversation with a lawmaker. “I said, ‘Do you put blood in the matzos that you eat on Passover?’ There is no distinction between the two. This is a blood libel. Blood libels cost lives.”

Leiter did not refer to Sanders by name, but the Jewish Independent from Vermont has been at the forefront of a series of recent Senate resolutions calling on Congress to block certain arms sales to Israel. The most recent, in August, did not pass, but 27 Democrats, the majority of the caucus, voted for it. 

“Somebody claiming the mantle of Jewish pedigree actually leads the charge — an embargo on Israel, an embargo on weapons to Israel at a time of a seven-front war,” he said. “Where is the outrage? Where are we being called to order that this is no different than putting blood in the matzos on Passover?”

The ambassador’s speech, delivered to a group that included Democratic and Republican lawmakers, Trump administration officials and Jewish communal leaders, came hours after two Israeli soldiers were killed at the Allenby Crossing from Jordan into the West Bank by a Jordanian driving a Gaza-bound truck of humanitarian aid, and after four Israeli soldiers were killed by a bomb in Gaza. 

Leiter warned that Israel is “facing something now that we haven’t faced perhaps since the 1930s.”

“It’s a contagion of lies that we have to battle together, because if you don’t battle lies, you end up battling for your life,” said Leiter. “This era of Rosh Hashanah, please be aware: the Protocols of the Elders of Zion 2.0 are being written right now.”

He castigated European governments for moves toward recognizing a Palestinian state, calling it “an award for terrorism” and accusing France and Britain of “moral depravity.” He also directed his ire at the Jewish actress Hannah Einbinder, who in an Emmy acceptance speech last week said “F*** ICE, free Palestine.”

“Maybe you deserve an Emmy, but what you don’t deserve is a platform to libel your own people and to libel people standing opposed to moral depravity on the international stage,” said Leiter, who did not mention Einbinder by name. 

“Israel is standing alone in the world,” the ambassador said — except for “with our dearest friends in the Congress of the United States and the Senate of the United States and the administration of President [Donald] Trump, the best friend Israel ever had in the White House.”