A Metropolitan Police officer has been fired without notice after sharing an image of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu morphing into Adolf Hitler.
Detective Constable Ibrahim Khan posted the screenshot in October, 2023, which was captioned: ‘The irony of becoming what you once hated. Well done Israel, Hitler would be proud.’
This and other images posted to Khan’s 250 online followers between October 17 and 23 were disseminated to a gross misconduct panel which found him in breach of professional standards.
In one image, Khan added the text: ‘Every day they invent some new bull**** lie to try gain Western sympathy’ and ‘f*** them’.
According to the senior officer who chaired the panel, several posts shared suggested that the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel’s border ‘were a fabrication’.
The officer chairing said: ‘I find that these posts all draw explicit comparisons between contemporary Israeli policy and the Nazis.
‘DC Khan’s conduct was deliberate and sustained over a number of days.’
The images shared by the officer, who was based in Scotland Yard’s Community Safety Unit, were found to be antisemitic according to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of the term.
A placard of the image shared by DC Ibrahim Khan with his 250 followers on social media
The former officer has been dismissed without notice and found to have breach professional standards of conduct (File image)
Khan denied antisemitism, arguing that the IHRA’s definition of antisemitism is ‘not legally binding’.
The IHRA definition, widely used by several workplaces, has previously met criticism.
A 2020 statement by Palestinian and Arab academics, intellectuals and journalists reads: ‘Antisemitism must be debunked and combated. Regardless of pretence, no expression of hatred for Jews as Jews should be tolerated anywhere in the world.
‘Through “examples” that it provides, the IHRA definition conflates Judaism with Zionism in assuming that all Jews are Zionists, and that the state of Israel in its current reality embodies the self-determination of all Jews.
‘We profoundly disagree with this. The fight against antisemitism should not be turned into a stratagem to delegitimise the fight against the oppression of the Palestinians, the denial of their rights and the continued occupation of their land.’
After his dismissal, Khan’s name was added to the College of Policing’s barred list.
Comparisons have been widely drawn between Netanyahu and Hitler due to the Israeli leader’s targeting of one ethnic group, namely Palestinians.
Many such ‘morphing’ images can be found online. The Voice Of Rabbis, a nonprofit organisation comprised of ‘Jews united against Zionism’, shared a similar post on X to its almost 300,000 followers.
An image shared to X by nonprofit organisation Voice Of Rabbis, comparing Netanyahu to Hitler
Another post, which features side by side images of Hitler and Netanyahu, reads: ‘Netanyahu is a Nazi, today’s Hitler.
‘Netanyahu is no Jewish Leader. Netanyahu is a murderer and genocidal man.
‘He should be tried and pay for all the war crimes he committed. Supporting Netanyahu means supporting genocide and Nazis.’
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity by intentionally depriving Palestinians of food and directing attacks against civilians.
In response, Netanyahu said: ‘This is an antisemitic act that has one goal – to deter me, to deter us, from exercising our natural right to defend ourselves against our enemies.’
The death tolls that have emerged from Israel and Palestine are wholly disproportionate.
The official number of Palestinian soldiers and civilians murdered by Israel since the October 7 attacks is more than 60,000, while the number of Israelis murdered is closer to 1,300.
