Ali Hosseini Khamenei, the current Supreme Leader of Iran, is spreading hate and calls for violence against Israel and Jews. That’s nothing new. Except now the Iranian dictator is becoming increasingly active on Twitter. These days “media” is not just print and television, but social media too; and that’s where HonestReporting comes in.
Khamenei is abusing his Twitter account to broadly distribute antisemitic conspiracy theories, threats of violence and incitement for others to commit violence, including a link to his web site which contains calls for a Final Solution: a thinly veiled reference to Hitler’s notorious plan to murder all Jewish people in the world, which formed the centerpiece of the Holocaust.
Other specific examples include: calling the Jewish state a “cancerous tumor,” and calling for Palestinians to defeat the “Zionist enemy” through greater “access to weapons.” Like many modern antisemites, Khamenei declares he is not actually a Jew-hater, before going on to portray himself as a mere anti-Zionist whose aim is to “eliminate” the worlds only Jewish state, and the country with the world’s biggest concentration of Jews.
The enemies misinterpret the Islamic Republic’s idea of “eliminating Israel”. Eliminating Israel does not mean eliminating Jewish people. We are not #Antisemitic; Jews live in peace in Iran. Eliminating Israel represents elimination of the imposed Zionist regime. pic.twitter.com/4uKDxcccJI
— Khamenei TV (@Khamenei_tv) May 24, 2020
Incitement to violence is not only not free speech, it’s also illegal under U.S. law. So is aiding and abetting incitement to violence, which is exactly what Twitter is doing in this case.
Incitement to violence violates Twitter’s terms and conditions, terms which the company often enforces aggressively even against only marginal violations. So why does one of the world’s most brutal dictators receive different treatment?
Last year, when Airbnb adopted a discriminatory policy against Israeli communities in the disputed territories, HonestReporting took action with the United States Office of Antiboycott Compliance. This time, we have filed a complaint with the Hate Crimes Division of the US Department of Justice. We also sent a copy of the complaint to Elan Carr, the State Department’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, as well as to Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey, demanding the immediate suspension of the @khamenei_ir Twitter account. Click here to see a copy of our complaint.
This is no mere technical legal game: hate speech on Twitter and other social media platforms has been the indirect, direct or proximate cause of numerous hate crimes, including deaths and injuries to American Jews. Recent examples include: five people stabbed during a Hanukkah celebration in Monsey, New York, four killed in a shooting at a Jersey City grocery store, and a shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue that left 11 dead. Each event was either directly preceded or immediately followed by hate speech on social media platforms, in form and substance similar to that of Khamenei’s communications on Twitter.
By giving Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei a platform, Twitter shoulders responsibility for the violence he incites against millions of Israelis and against Jews throughout the world. Last week, in response to social pressure, Twitter started putting warnings on posts from U.S. President Donald J. Trump, based on the possibility the posts may contain false or misleading information, in Twitter’s opinion. Surely one of the world’s most brutal dictators requires at least the same degree of scrutiny.
Take action: Click HERE to access Khamenei’s Twitter page and from there click on the three dots and then click “report” in order to Twitter, alerting them to the need to suspend this Twitter account.
