A senior official from the Council on American–Islamic Relations testified before the Ohio State Senate and accused Israel of harvesting human skin from dead Palestinians. The claim, delivered under oath during legislative testimony, stunned lawmakers and Jewish leaders, who immediately condemned the remarks as a modern version of one of history’s oldest antisemitic lies.

Khalid Turaani, executive director of the Ohio chapter of CAIR, made the accusation while testifying against Senate Bill 87, legislation that would codify into Ohio law the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism. Thirty-seven U.S. states have already adopted the definition in some form.

Standing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Turaani insisted that the legislation would criminalize statements he believes are true.

“Where do you think they got all this skin from?” Turaani said. “They have more human skin than China and India. They are literally skinning the dead bodies of my brothers and sisters in Palestine. That is where they are getting the human skin from.”

He added that if he called Israelis “Nazis,” the proposed law would punish him.

The reaction in the chamber was immediate. Witnesses sitting beside him appeared visibly shocked as the accusation was delivered in a formal government hearing.

The Anti-Defamation League sharply condemned the remarks, describing them as a revival of one of the most dangerous myths in Jewish history.

“We are appalled that the CAIR-Ohio Executive Director falsely accused Israel of skinning Palestinians before the Ohio State Senate,” the organization said in a statement. “The antisemitic organ harvesting myth plays on the blood libel trope, which has spurred the torture, murder, and expulsion of Jews for centuries. It continues to fuel violence against Jewish communities today. Such hateful, utterly false rhetoric has no place in our state capitol.”

Blood libels date back in some form to the time of ancient Rome and emerged in full in 12th century England. It was a classic trope of Christian antisemitism, alleging that Jews murder children in order to use their blood to bake matzah. This monstrous lie in various forms led to violence against Jews well into the 20th century.

The blood libel was spread by Christians in the Muslim world. The 1840 Damascus Blood Libel was the first of dozens in the Ottoman Empire. After the French consul in Damascus joined Capuchin monks in accusing Jews of murdering a monk and his servant, many Jewish notables were arrested.

Ohio lawmakers echoed the concern.

Rep. Eric Synenberg, a Democrat from Beachwood, said the testimony itself demonstrated why the legislation is necessary.

“This happened during a debate about the IHRA definition of antisemitism,” Synenberg told the Cleveland Jewish News. “And here we see in this very testimony why we need the extra protections that the IHRA definition would provide Jewish Ohioans. You couldn’t have a better example of why we need this special definition because antisemitism is unfortunately so rampant.”

Sen. Casey Weinstein of Hudson said he was stunned by the accusations.

“I was shocked,” Weinstein said. “I was absolutely shocked that somebody in that position would make such vile and outrageous claims in a place like the Ohio Senate, or anywhere for that matter.”

Marc Ashed, interim administrator at Ohio Jewish Communities, said the remarks illustrate why the definition of antisemitism must be clearly codified.

“Nothing prohibits this man’s ability to say what he said,” Ashed said. “But it makes crystal clear for people looking from the outside that this is a hateful comment and defining it as such.”

The accusation that Jews harvest body parts echoes the medieval blood libel, the claim that Jews murder non-Jews and use their bodies for ritual purposes. The lie circulated throughout Europe and led to massacres, expulsions, and pogroms against Jewish communities.

Turaani’s comments also come amid renewed scrutiny of CAIR and its leadership.

During the 2007 Holy Land Foundation trial, federal prosecutors named CAIR an unindicted co-conspirator in a case involving a supposed charity that sent funds to Hamas, the terrorist organization that carried out the October 7 massacre in Israel. CAIR has denied wrongdoing.

Some U.S. states have taken further steps. Texas designated CAIR as a foreign terrorist organization, and members of Congress have called for an investigation into the group’s tax-exempt status.

The Biden administration initially included CAIR in its national strategy to combat antisemitism but later removed the organization after criticism over statements blaming Israel for the October 7 Hamas attack.

Turaani’s rhetoric has also extended beyond the Ohio hearing. In a March 4 interview on Al-Mayadeen TV, a Beirut-based network affiliated with Hezbollah and supportive of the Iranian regime, Turaani expressed hope that Israel would disappear.

“I hope we get rid of this occupying, Zionist, Israeli entity once and for all,” he said, according to a translation published by MEMRI.

Al-Mayadeen frequently hosts officials from Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

According to Jewish Onliner, Turaani also participated in an October 2025 Arabic-language conference hosted by the Lebanon-based Al-Zaytouna Centre. The event included Majed al-Zeer, a senior Hamas official in Europe sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department, and Sami al-Arian, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide services to Palestinian Islamic Jihad before being deported from the United States.

The Ohio Senate continues to debate Senate Bill 87, which would formally adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism in the state’s civil rights statutes. Supporters say the definition gives law enforcement and state agencies a clear framework to identify antisemitic acts.

Lawmakers said the spectacle of a public official repeating a modern version of the blood libel inside a state capitol building illustrates exactly what the legislation seeks to address.

The blood libel of organ harvesting has been waged against the IDF in the past. Most recently,  during an interview with former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett about the IDF’s recent counterterrorism raid in Jenin, BBC News presenter Anjana Gadgi stated that the IDF is “happy to kill children”.

On August 17, 2009, the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet, one of the largest daily newspapers in the Nordic countries, published an article claiming that Israeli troops harvested organs from Palestinians who had died in their custody. The author, Donald Boström, admitted that there was “no conclusive evidence, only a collection of allegations and suspicious circumstances”, but he stood by his claims based on the allegations of the families of Palestinians killed by the Israeli army.

“The point is that we know there is organ trafficking in Israel,” he told the Arab news site Menassat. “And we also know that there are families claiming that their children’s organs have been harvested. These two facts together point to the need for further investigation.” 

The article was cited around the world by numerous media, including The Guardian and NBC News. Time Magazine published a retraction of an article based on Boström’s claims. It also led to speculation that Israeli relief efforts in Haiti after the earthquake in 2021  were a smokescreen for organ theft operations.

The libelous article was financed in part by the Swedish Foreign Ministry. 

In the Arab and Muslim world today, a fabricated accusation is still enough to incite violence against Israel and Jews. Indeed, the power of the mob has always been a tool of the unscrupulous.

The claim that the IDF harvests the organs of Palestinians was submitted as a formal complaint to the UN in 2015 by the Palestinian Authority.