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Sunday, April 8, 2012

[chottala.com] Israel bars German Nobel laureate Gunter Grass for poem critical of its nuclear arsenal




 

Israel declared Grass 'persona non grata' on Apr 8, 2012, over a poem titled What Must Be Said, in which the former SS soldier described the Jewish state as a threat to world peace. -- PHOTO: REUTERS 

Israel bars German author for poem critical of its nuclear arsenal

 
 

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

JERUSALEM -- Israel's interior minister Sunday barred German author Gunter Grass from entering the country, in response to a new poem in which the Nobel laureate called Israel's undeclared nuclear arsenal a threat to world peace.

The case was the latest of several in recent years in which Israel has refused entry to controversial figures critical of its policies.

Interior Minister Eli Yishai said in a written statement that Grass' poem, published Wednesday, "is an attempt to fan the flames of hatred against Israel and the Jewish people, and thus promote the idea with which he was publicly affiliated in the past when he wore the SS uniform."

Grass disclosed in 2006 that he was drafted toward the end of World War II to serve in the Nazi Waffen SS unit. A spokesman for Yishai said that was the technical basis for the entry ban.

"If Gunter wishes to continue propagating his distorted and false works, I suggest he do so from Iran, where he will find a supportive audience," said Yishai, the leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party.

Grass' poem, titled "What Must Be Said," was published in the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung, provoking Israeli condemnations and criticism in Germany, where the memory of the Holocaust constrains public debate about Israel and infuses the complex relationship between the two countries.

Referring to Israeli threats of military action against Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran says is for peaceful purposes, Grass warned against "the alleged right to first strike that could annihilate the Iranian people ... because in their territory, it is suspected, a bomb is being built."

In the poem, Grass, 84, said he had remained silent about Israel's nuclear capability because of fear that he would be labeled an anti-Semite.

"Why do I say only now, aged and with my last drop of ink, that the nuclear power of Israel endangers an already fragile world peace?" Grass wrote. "Because what must be said may be too late tomorrow."

Grass warned that by supplying Israel with submarines that could carry nuclear "all-destroying warheads," Germany risked complicity in "a foreseeable crime."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has compared Iran's nuclear program and threats against Israel to the Holocaust, promptly accused Grass of drawing a "shameful moral equivalence between Israel and Iran."

"It is Iran, not Israel, that is a threat to the peace and security of the world," Netanyahu said. "It is Iran, not Israel, that threatens other states with annihilation."

Noting Grass' service in the SS, Netanyahu added that it was "perhaps not surprising" for him "to cast the one and only Jewish state as the greatest threat to world peace and to oppose giving Israel the means to defend itself."

The Israeli Embassy in Berlin called Grass' poem anti-Semitic, saying that its publication before the Jewish Passover holiday, "belongs to European tradition to accuse the Jews of ritual murder before the Passover celebration."

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle wrote in a commentary Sunday in the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that "putting Israel and Iran on the same moral level is ... absurd," adding that Germany has an "historic responsibility" toward Israel.

In an interview with Suddeutche Zeitung published Friday, Grass, who has long urged Germans to confront their Nazi past, sought to calm the storm, saying he did not intend to attack Israel, but Netanyahu's policies.

The Israeli entry ban against Grass, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999, follows similar measures by Israel against other prominent opponents of its policies.

In May 2010 the linguist Noam Chomsky, an outspoken critic of American and Israeli policy, was prevented from crossing from Jordan into the occupied West Bank. In December 2008, Richard Falk, a United Nations investigator of human rights in the Palestinian areas, was refused entry on the grounds that he was hostile to Israel. Earlier that year, Norman Finkelstein, an American scholar who has been a sharp critic of Israel, was barred entry after a visit to Lebanon where he met officials of the guerrilla group Hezbollah.

Tom Segev, an Israeli historian who has interviewed Grass and was critical of his latest poem, said that the ban on his entry was an "utterly stupid" decision that would "exacerbate Israel's isolation and cause more harm."

Writing in the liberal newspaper Haaretz, Gideon Levy, a columnist, argued that while Grass' poem was "harsh" and wrongly accused Israel of threatening to wipe out the Iranian people, it did contain valid criticism that had drawn disproportionate reactions in Israel.

"A situation in which any German who dares criticize Israel is instantly accused of anti-Semitism is intolerable," Levy wrote. "Instead of accusing them, we should consider what we've done that caused them to express themselves that way."

(Greenberg is a McClatchy special correspondent.)

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/08/2737901/israel-bars-german-author-for.html


What must be said

Why I am silent, silent for too much time, 
how much is clear and we made it 
in war games, where, as survivors, 
we are just the footnotes.

That is the claimed right to the formal preventive aggression 
which could erase the Iranian people 
dominated by a bouncer and moved to an organized jubilation, 
because in the area of his competence there is 
the construction of the atomic bomb.

And then why do I avoid myself 
to call the other country with its name, 
where since years - even if secretly covered - 
there is an increasing nuclear power, 
without control, because unreachable 
by every inspection?

I feel the everybody silence on this state of affairs, 
which my silence is slave to, 
as an oppressive lie and an inhibition that presents punishment 
we don't pay attention to; 
the verdict "anti-Semitism" is common.

Now, since my country, 
from time to time touched by unique and exclusive crimes, 
obliged to justify itself, 
again for pure business aims - even if 
with fast tongue we call it "reparation" - 
should deliver another submarine to Israel,
with the specialty of addressing
annihilating warheads where the 
existence of one atomic bomb is not proved 
but it wants evidence as a scarecrow, 
I say what must be said.

Why did I stay silent until now? 
Because the thought about my origin, 
burdened by an unclearing stain, 
had avoiding to wait this fact 
like a truth declared by the State of Israel 
that I want to be connected to.

Why did I say it only now, 
old and with the last ink: 
the nuclear power of Israel 
threat the world peace? 
Because it must be said 
what tomorrow will be too late; 
Because - as Germans and with 
enough faults on the back - 
we might also become deliverers of a predictable 
crime, and no excuse would erase our complicity.

And I admit: I won't be silent 
because I had enough of the Western hypocrisy; 
Because I wish that many will want 
to get rid of the silence, 
exhorting the cause of a recognizable 
risk to the abdication, asking that a free and permanent control 
of the Israel atomic power 
and the Iran nuclear bases 
will be made by both the governments 
with an international supervision.

Only in this way, Israelis, Palestinians, and everybody,
all people living hostile face to face in that
country occupied by the craziness, 
will have a way out, 
so us too.

Translation by Alessandro Ghebreigziabiher

http://www.payvand.com/news/12/apr/1035.html


Günter Grass's Poem About Israel Provokes Intense Criticism ...

artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/.../gunter-grass-poem-about-israel-provo...
4 days ago – In the poem, titled "What Must Be Said" and published in Germany's Suddeutsche Zeitung and several other European newspapers on ...

News for poem titled What Must Be Said

  1. Israel Bars German Laureate Grass Over Poem

    New York Times‎ - 1 hour ago
    Controversy has engulfed Mr. Grass, 84, for the past five days since he published his 69-line poem titled "What Must Be Said" in the German newspaper ...
  1. MiamiHerald.com‎ - 4 hours ago
  2. The Associated Press‎ - 6 hours ago

    1. World on a Page: Provocative Poetry, Prohibited Cheese - The Daily ...

      www.thedailybeast.com/.../world-on-a-page-provocative-poetry-proh...
      1 hour ago – The very un-Rilke-like poem, titled "What Must Be Said," also calls for "unhindered and permanent monitoring of Israel's nuclear potential and ...

    2. 'What Must Be Said': German author Gunter Grass calls Israel 'threat ...

      www.globalpost.com/.../gunter-grass-israel-poem-what-must-be-said
      4 days ago – The poem, entitled 'What must be said' and published in German newspaper the Süddeutsche Zeitung this morning, has already prompted ...

  1. Nobelprice vinner poem about Isreal "What needs to be said"

    www.defence.pk/.../171348-nobelprice-vinner-poem-about-isreal-wh...
    In his poem titled "What must be said" the Nobel literature requests, therefore, Israel should not get a German U-boats more. Why I am silent, silent about too ...

  2. Israel bars German writer Grass from visiting over poem

    english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/04/08/206243.html
    14 hours ago – The poem, titled "What Must Be Said," was condemned by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has described the Islamic republic's

    Following Poem, Israel Bars Entry To Guenter Grass : NPR

    www.npr.org › News › World
    6 hours ago – In a poem called "What Must Be Said" published last Wednesday, Grass, 84, criticized what he described as Western hypocrisy over Israel's ...




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