In a column for the Al-Riyadh daily, Saudi author and journalist Abdallah bin Bakhit said that what happened to the Jews in the Holocaust was an "unforgivable crime" and that "Jews have a right to live in peace."
As reported and translated by MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, Bin Bakhit wrote his column after Mohammad Al-'Issa, secretary-general of the Mecca-based Muslim World League, visited the Auschwitz death camp in Poland on Jan. 23, 2020.
“The Jews have a right to live in peace, just like the Muslims and the Hindus," said Bin Bakhit. "Just as the conflict between certain groups of Hindus and Muslims does not negate the right of either side to live in peace, so the conflict between Muslims and Jews over the Palestinian issue does not negate the right of either side to peace and justice."
“Many of us don’t realize that what happened to the Palestinians in Palestine was not the result of what happened to the Jews in Germany," he said. "The British colonialists did not give Palestine to the Jews as a gift to appease them after what happened to them during World War II [i.e., the Holocaust]."
"The Arab-Israeli conflict began at the start of the twentieth century," he added, "while the crime of the Jewish Holocaust took place in the middle of that century."
“The visit of Dr. Mohammad Al-'Issa, secretary-general of the Muslim World League, to Auschwitz, where the Nazi Holocaust took place and where more than a million people were killed, mostly Jews from Poland, was a moral gesture unrelated to the pending political issues," said Bin Bakhit.
He continued, “This historic visit proves that Saudi Arabia, aided by its moderate Islam, does not adopt contradictory messages in striving for peace. What is happening to the Palestinians in Palestine is a tragedy, and what happened to the Jews in Nazi Germany is also a tragedy."
"When we defend the rights of the Palestinian people, it must not be [accompanied by] efforts to ignore the rights of others," he wrote. "What happened to the German Jews and to several other ethnic groups [during the Holocaust] is an unforgivable crime."
“In order to consolidate the concept of peace, we must rise above the games of politics and see tragedies as they are," said the writer. "There is no difference between one tragedy and another. Even if Israel exploited the tragedy of the Jews during the Nazi period [for its own ends], many Arabs and Muslims have [acted similarly by] exploiting the Palestinian tragedy and using it [to serve] their political agendas."
"[And just as] many respectable Muslims feel solidarity with the victims of Nazism, we must remember that many respectable Jews have defended, and continue to defend, Palestinian rights," wrote Bin Bakhit.
MEMRI noted that "Al-‘Issa’s visit to Auschwitz, made in advance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, prompted numerous reactions in the Saudi media, most of which were favorable and supportive."
According to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the "Auschwitz camp complex was essential to carrying out the Nazi plan for the 'Final Solution.'"
"It is estimated that the SS and police deported at least 1.3 million people to the Auschwitz camp complex between 1940 and 1945," reported the museum. "Of these deportees, approximately 1.1 million people were murdered."
The museum states that the "best estimates of the number of victims at the Auschwitz camp complex, including the killing center at Auschwitz-Birkenau, between 1940 and 1945 are:
- Jews (1,095,000 deported to Auschwitz, 960,000 died)
- Non-Jewish Poles (140,000- 150,000 deported, 74,000 died)
- Roma (Gypsies) (23,000 deported, 21,000 died)
- Soviet prisoners of war (15,000 deported and died)
- Other nationalities (25,000 deported, 10,000- 15,000 died)"