New Delhi: An Oxford-educated Pakistani senator’s now-deleted tweet praising Hitler and justifying the Holocaust, as the Israel-Hamas war rages on, has sparked outrage across the world and even among supporters of Palestine in Pakistan.
Senator Afnan Ullah Khan on Sunday shared a post on X (formerly Twitter) with a picture of Hitler and captioned it: “At least now the world knows, why he did, what he did #Gaza_Genocide”.
It caused an immediate uproar across the world with international publications like the Jerusalem Post and New York Post condemning it. Author and South Asia Institute Director of The Wilson Center, Michael Kugelman slammed the tweet calling it “pure, unadulterated hate”.
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The irony
Others highlighted the irony of the statement, pointing out that if Hitler had been alive today, he would have had the senator executed.
“Hitler would have killed Afnan Ullah Khan too. Gypsies, Catholics, homosexuals were all killed. If there had been brown Muslims in Europe at the time, they would have gone first,” wrote a New York-based X user.
In Pakistan, there is a wave of anti-Israel and anti-American sentiments. On Sunday, thousands of people held a protest march in Islamabad against the bombing of Palestinians in Gaza. The senator was riding the anti-Israel wave in Pakistan where celebrities and political leaders have been protesting Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip.
But he went too far this time.
It wasn’t just the international political commentators and media who criticised Khan for his anti-Semitic, hate-ridden tweet. Pakistanis too were shocked and called for the post to be deleted. Local media outlets chose to ignore him.
“No violence is justifiable be it against Palestinians or Jews,” said Ayesha Siddiqa, Pakistani author and senior fellow at the King’s College in London.
In Pakistan, many saw Khan’s comments as part of “Nawaz Sharif’s party’s history of antisemitism.” Former Prime Minister Imran Khan was often called a ‘Jewish agent’ by his opponents after he married Jemima Goldsmith.
The tweet was soon removed from X for violating its community guidelines.
Khan, who also chairs the Senate’s national heritage and culture committee, is no stranger to controversy. In September, he made headlines after he got into a brawl with Imran Khan’s lawyer on a live television show.
More recently he hailed United States of America presidential contender Vivek Ramaswamy as an “exemplary sycophant” because of his heritage and his support for Israel.
Meanwhile, Pakistani celebrities have amped up their support for Palestine, while national dailies like Dawn regularly carry opinions from columnists and analysts on Palestine. “It has penetrated even the naval gazing which passes for political discussions in Pakistan,” wrote journalist Arifa Noor.