London cop who worked in hate crimes unit sacked for antisemitic posts after Oct. 7
One of the images showed Hitler morphing into Netanyahu amid other ‘antisemitic and grossly offensive’ posts to Instagram in the wake of Hamas onslaught
A London police officer has been sacked for posting “antisemitic and grossly offensive” messages on Instagram in the wake of Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, police announced Friday.
One of DC Ibrahim Khan’s posts contained an image of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler morphing into Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the text “the irony of becoming what you once hated.”
In the summary of his hearing, police said the probe into Khan centered on messages the officer posted on an Instagram account to around 250 people between 17-23 October, 2023.
“Individually and collectively, these messages are antisemitic and grossly offensive, and in reposting them, DC Khan’s actions amount to gross misconduct,” police said.
Other images posted by Khan included a photo of a mass grave from 1945 next to what purported to be a mass grave in Gaza, while a third post contained the text “Gazans have none of this. It’s a concentration camp.” Multiple other images were cited in the police statement, including one in which Khan had added the text: “Every day they invent some new bullshit lie to try gain Western sympathy” and “fuck them.”
The officer in charge of the investigation said that the posts “all draw explicit comparisons between contemporary Israeli policy and the Nazis,” and were therefore in violation of the IHRA definition of antisemitism.
The officer additionally said that other posts “suggest that the events of 7 October 2023, in which over a thousand people were killed by Hamas, were a fabrication. I find that this assertion, made in the days after the attack, to be grossly offensive.”
The report concluded that while Khan was not responsible for the offensive comments posted to his account, his “conduct was deliberate and sustained over a number of days, over a number of separate posts. In one case, he took the opportunity to add further offensive comments to the image, which he re-posted.”
Khan worked in Scotland Yard’s Community Safety Unit, which, according to The Standard, has a remit that includes the investigation of hate crimes, including those motivated by race and faith.
The investigation into his conduct cited Khan’s work in that unit, saying it was therefore “inconceivable… that he did not consider that these posts could be antisemitic or highly offensive.”
The October 7 assault — in which thousands of terrorists invaded southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, amid acts of brutality and sexual assault — sparked immediate demonstrations worldwide, even before Israel’s response.
London’s Metropolitan Police service has come under criticism for its policing of pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protests in the British capital.
Officers have been accused of turning a blind eye to antisemitic chants and posters at the demonstrations, while the routes of some marches have disrupted Shabbat services at central London synagogues.
The London police force has struggled to manage tensions sparked by the Israel-Hamas war, with Jewish residents saying they feel threatened by repeated pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel marches.
Though the pro-Palestinian marches have been largely peaceful, a British counterterrorism official said last year the protests have made the streets of London “a no-go zone for Jews every weekend.”
Demonstrations have also featured people glorifying Hamas, and antisemitic incidents and chants.
British Jews say they have been subject to verbal abuse by some pro-Palestinian supporters since October 7, and there have been recorded incidents of physical violence as well.
The Times of Israel Community.