BERLIN – The German writer Günter Grass published a poem in two major European
newspapers on Wednesday, in which he accuses Israel of jeopardizing world
security.
In his writing, the 84-yearold poet and novelist aligns himself
with the Islamic Republic of Iran and calls for the administration of German
Chancellor Angela Merkel to stop its delivery of Dolphin submarines to the
Jewish state.
In response to Grass, Israel’s Embassy in Berlin, Jewish
leaders, NGOs and German politicians fiercely criticized the writer, including
accusations that he harbors an anti-Semitic attitude and lacks Mideast political
knowledge.
Grass, who revealed in 2006 that he had been a member of the
Nazi Waffen- SS, a group designed to exclusively eliminate European Jewry during
WWII, wrote in his poem titled What must be said that “Why do I only say now,
aged and with my last ink: The atomic power Israel is endangering the already
fragile world peace?”
The writer and Social Democratic party activist was the
winner of the 1999 Nobel Prize in literature for his body of novels. His poem
also appeared in European papers, including the left-liberal German Süddeutsche
Zeitung and the Italian paper la Repubblica.
Israel’s government reacted
swiftly to Grass on Wednesday. Emmanuel Nahshon, deputy chief of mission
for the Israeli Embassy in Germany, said, “what must be said is that it belongs
to the European tradition to accuse the Jews of ritual murder before the
Passover celebration.”
“It used to be Christian children whose blood the
Jews used to make matza, today it is the Iranian people that the Jewish state
purportedly wants to wipe out.”
Nahshon added that “We want to live in
peace with our neighbors in the region. And we are not prepared to assume
the role that Günter Grass assigns us in the German people’s process of coming
to terms with its history.”
Grass wrote that Germany could be a “supplier
to a crime” in connection with Merkel’s decision to supply Israel with a sixth
nuclearcapable Super Dolphin-class submarine.
“I admit: I will be silent
no longer, because I am sick of the hypocrisy of the West,” added Grass in his
poem.
Steffen Seibert, a spokesman for Merkel, said: “In Germany, the
freedom of artistic expression applies, as, fortunately, does the freedom of the
government not to comment on every work of art.”
Speaking from Jerusalem
via telephone, Dr. Efraim Zuroff, director of the capital’s Simon Wiesenthal
Center and known as the world’s leading Nazi-hunter, told The Jerusalem Post on
Wednesday, “Günter Grass’s attack on Israel and outrageous accusations against
the Jewish state are a reflection of the transformation of German anti-Semitism
in recent years.”
Zuroff continued that “While attacks on individual Jews
as Jews are politically incorrect and generally unacceptable in the Federal
Republic, Israel has become the whipping boy for anti- Semitic Germans sick of
the Holocaust and seeking to rid themselves of any responsibility for its
aftermath.
“In this respect, the outrageous comments by Grass are not
unusually surprising, since his moral integrity was totally compromised by his
admission of service in the Waffen-SS, and his status as a moral conscience for
the country in terms of facing its World War II guilt was obviously
unjustified.”
Zuroff further said that “Grass is speaking for a spectrum
of ostensibly respectable Germans who harbor anti-Semitic views which which
cannot be uttered at home in Germany, but can be directed at Israel, which has
become a symbol for the hated Jews. The tin drum he is banging is not the one of
moral conscience but of deep-seated prejudice against the Jewish people, the
primary victims of German anti-Semitism, racism, and xenophobia.”
The Tin
Drum, which Zuroff cited in his criticism, is the name of Grass’s most famous
novel about the lead up to World War II in Poland and Germany and the time
during the war years.
The Central Council of Jews in Germany said Grass’s
writing was an “aggressive pamphlet of agitation.”
Henryk M. Broder, a
leading expert on modern anti-Semitism and a German-Jewish journalist and
author, wrote that Grass is “the prototype of the educated
anti-Semite.”
Broder added in his Die Welt commentary that “Grass has
always had a problem with Jews but he has never articulated it as clearly as
with this ‘poem’… haunted by feelings of guilt and shame and also driven by the
desire to settle history, he is now attempting to disarm the ‘cause of the
recognizable threat.”
Philipp Mißfelder, the foreign policy spokesman for
Merkel’s party in the Bundestag, told the daily Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger that “the
poem is tasteless and unhistoric and shows a lack of knowledge about the
situation in the Middle East.”
Grass received support from the German
Left party deputy Wolfgang Gehrcke.
He said Grass has the “courage” to
say what is silenced. In the past Gehrcke has participated in pro- Hamas and
pro-Hezbollah rallies and has compared Israel to Nazi Germany.
Critics
accuse Gehrcke of spreading hatred of Jews and Israel in the Federal
Republic. The Left Party has been engulfed in series of anti- Israel and
anti-Semitic scandals over the last few years.
“Günter Grass is turning
the situation upside-down by defending a brutal regime that not only disregards
but openly violates international agreements for many years,” said Deidre
Berger, director of the Berlin American Jewish Committee/Ramer
Institute.
“[Iranian] President [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad bears
responsibility for grave human rights violations, rejects Israel’s right to
exist and denies the Holocaust. It is a grotesque reversal of reality to depict
President Ahmadinejad as an adventurous bragger while denouncing Israeli
politicians for their position countering Iranian aggression,” added
Berger.
“Grass is causing huge damage to German-Israeli relations by
depicting the Israeli government as criminal while protecting the policies of
Iran, the real instigators of the conflict,” Berger said. “Grass asserts that
criticism of Israel is neither allowed and is in any case not anti-Semitic. He
is simply diverting attention from the real issues. Instead of denouncing
Israel, Günter Grass should answer the question as to why he does not condemn
the many authoritarian regimes in the Middle East that, until now, have made
regional peace impossible. It might be useful for him to reflect as well on his
own controversial statements regarding Germany’s Nazi past.
“In past
years, Günter Grass has repeatedly cast the Israeli government as the root of
all evil in the region. The author chose to release his newest attack on Israel,
whom he claims is threatening Iran, just two days before the start of Passover,
when Jews for time immemorial have been murdered for alleged blood libel,” said
Berger.
“Grass’s seeming indifference to Israel, Jewish history and
religion prompts the question as to his own relation to German history.”
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