A California lawyer has come under fire from Jewish groups for making genocidal claims against Jews on social media.
In past Facebook posts, the lawyer, Farhad Khorasani, claimed that Israel is “the main enemy of the human race and the world,” saying: “The Jew anywhere is an existential threat to Aryans, muslims [sic] and Iranians everywhere. Hitler has proved that he knew these terrorist semites [sic] very well. Hitler was right, we need a new Hitler.”
The posts were first reported last week by the blog Israellycool, followed by StopAntisemitism.org, which issued a call to action against the lawyer on Friday.
The Anti-Defamation League also criticized the California lawyer, who has his own firm, and urged action after the California State Bar declined to take disciplinary action.
“ADL condemns lawyer Farhad Khorasani’s reported offensive & anti-Semitic posts glorifying Hitler,” the organization said via Twitter on Thursday. “As the CA State Bar has declined to take formal action, the legal community & all of us must call out & condemn Khorasani and his hateful rhetoric & ideology.”
The California Bar Association said it investigated Khorasani’s posts after a complaint was made, but said they would not pursue any action against the Iranian-American international lawyer. Officials with the California Bar Association said that while they condemn the comments made by Khorasani, “for this to be disciplinable offense, the misconduct must occur during the course of representing a client.”
Southwestern Law School, Khorasani’s alma mater, said in a statement that it is aware of the “intensely offensive anti-Semitic statements” by Khorasani and “strongly and unequivocally condemn these statements.”
“We value our Jewish community and oppose bigotry and hate speech of any kind,” the school added. “Please know that the Southwestern administration has taken appropriate measures in response.”
On Thursday, he posted on Instagram about “occupied Palestine, where you get killed for speaking up” and accused Israel of crimes against humanity. He titled the post “Holocaust awareness” and talked about the “ongoing Holocaust of six million Palestinians at the hands of the genocidal Israeli government.”
As of Sunday, Khorasani had removed the hateful messages from his social-media accounts.
He responded on Instagram to the backlash, saying, “I am exploring all possible next steps, including law suits to be taken regarding this matter. … I have never posted or called for genocide of any people, as I have frequently spoken out against the ongoing Holocaust of six million Palestinians at the hands of the genocidal Israeli government, & have said never again to the Holocaust of millions of Iranians during World War One at the hands of the English.”
On Saturday, he claimed his social-media accounts had been hacked and that he is 3 percent Jewish. He also apologized, noting that he is “looking forward to a productive & peaceful relationship with the Jewish community.”
