CAIR-Ohio Director Invokes Blood Libel at Ohio Senate Antisemitism Hearing
Khalid Turaani, who previously moderated a panel alongside a Treasury-designated Hamas official, told Ohio senators Israel is "skinning the bodies" of Palestinians to stock its skin bank
Khalid Turaani, Executive Director of the Ohio branch of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), appeared before the Ohio Senate Judiciary Committee on February 18, 2026 to testify against Senate Bill 87, which would codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism into Ohio state law.
During his testimony, Turaani alleged that Israel operates the world's largest human skin bank and that the skin is harvested from the bodies of dead Palestinians. CAIR’s lobbying arm, CAIR Action, and a coalition of other anti-Israel Ohio-based organizations also testified in opposition to SB 87 at the same hearing.
A Modern Blood Libel Before a State Legislature
The Anti-Defamation League has explicitly catalogued claims of this type — that Israel systematically harvests body parts from Palestinians — as a modern iteration of the medieval blood libel: the centuries-old antisemitic conspiracy theory alleging that Jews murder non-Jews to harvest their bodily matter. The ADL notes that in the current Israeli-Palestinian context, organs and tissue are substituted for blood, and that in some cases activists have gone further, alleging Israel deliberately kills Palestinians in order to harvest their remains. The ADL has found no credible evidentiary basis for these claims.
The specific “skin bank” framing Turaani deployed before Ohio state senators has circulated in anti-Israel activist circles since at least late 2023, traceable to social media accounts and pro-Palestinian advocacy networks. The ADL has directly addressed these claims, finding that they lack documented factual support and function as vehicles for antisemitic conspiracy narratives rather than substantiated reporting.
A Self-Defeating Argument
The context in which Turaani made this claim adds a significant dimension. SB 87, which he was testifying to defeat, would codify the IHRA definition of antisemitism into Ohio law. The IHRA definition, which has been used by the U.S. State Department and endorsed by over 40 countries, explicitly lists as an illustrative example of antisemitism: “Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.”
Turaani’s testimony did not remain confined to the hearing room. Ramy Abdu, the founder and chairman of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor (EuroMed), amplified the clip on X, stating: “Israel is skinning dead bodies of Palestinians.”
Abdu’s promotion of the claim is notable given EuroMed’s documented record and his own background. Abdu, along with EuroMed’s former chairman Dr. Mazen Kahel, were both named in a 2013 list released by the Israeli government identifying Hamas operatives and affiliated institutions in Europe. The watchdog group HonestReporting has described EuroMed as a “Hamas front org.”
EuroMed’s track record of unverified atrocity claims extends well beyond the Turaani clip. The organization has previously accused the Israeli army of organ theft from Palestinians and of “systematically” using police dogs to “brutally attack, rape Palestinian civilians” — claims that HonestReporting has characterized as part of a pattern of fake news, conspiracy theories, and blood libels the group has championed since the October 7, 2023 attacks.
Turaani’s Associations with Terrorist Officials
Turaani’s appearance before Ohio’s Senate Judiciary Committee comes months after he moderated a Beirut-hosted online panel in Arabic alongside a Hamas official, just eight days after Congress members called for a federal investigation into CAIR’s Hamas ties.
On October 22, 2025, the Beirut-based Al-Zaytouna Centre hosted a two-panel online conference titled Palestinians Abroad and Regional and International Strategic Transformations in the Light of Al-Aqsa Flood — “Al-Aqsa Flood” being Hamas’s official term for its October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.
Turaani chaired the first session. The second panel featured Majed al-Zeer, a senior Hamas operative in Europe sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in October 2024 and currently subject to a German arrest warrant. Also appearing was Sami al-Arian, who pleaded guilty in 2006 to conspiracy to provide services to the U.S.-designated terrorist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad and was subsequently deported from the United States.
The Al-Zaytouna event took place eight days after House Republican Leadership Chairwoman Elise Stefanik and Sen. Tom Cotton sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent requesting a formal investigation into whether CAIR maintains financial links to Hamas in violation of U.S. sanctions law.
Broader Federal Scrutiny of CAIR
The federal scrutiny of CAIR predates the Stefanik-Cotton letter by nearly two decades. During the 2007–2008 Holy Land Foundation trial — the largest terrorism-financing prosecution in U.S. history — federal prosecutors named CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator, identifying the organization as part of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee. The Holy Land Foundation was convicted of funneling over $12 million to Hamas. In 2014, the United Arab Emirates designated CAIR as a terrorist organization. More recently, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a proclamation in November 2025 designating CAIR as a foreign terrorist organization, followed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who issued a similar executive order in December 2025
The Cotton-Stefanik letter to the Treasury Department explicitly cited this history and called on Secretary Bessent to determine whether current CAIR activities constitute a violation of federal statutes prohibiting material support to designated terrorist organizations.
Why hasn’t CAIR been officially designated a terrorist group in America? So so so overdue!