The 84-year-old longtime leftist activist wrote in the 69-line poem titled, “What Must Be Said,” that he worries Israel “could wipe out the Iranian people” with a “first strike” due to its opposition to Tehran’s nuclear program.
Such destruction could only come from a nuclear attack, something Israel has never suggested is an option. All the talk in Israel has entered on an attack on several Iranian nuclear sites restricted to conventional weapons.
The poem, which appeared in the German daily Sued-deutsche Zeitung and the Italian daily La Repubblica, said, “Why do I only say now, aged and with my last ink: the atomic power Israel is endangering the already fragile world peace?”
Grass answers that Nazi Germany’s “incomparable” crimes against Jews and his own fear of accusations of anti-Semitism kept him from openly criticizing Israel.
But now, “tomorrow could already be too late” and Ger-many could become a “supplier to a crime,” Grass wrote, referring to a deal sealed last month for Berlin to sell Israel a sixth Dolphin-class submarine, which can carry nuclear-tipped missiles.
“I admit: I will be silent no longer, because I am sick of the hypocrisy of the West.”
Israelis slammed Grass’s poem, which also sparked a fevered debate on German-language news and culture websites.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle released a statement without mentioning Grass by name in which he warned against “making light of the dangers of the Iranian nuclear program.”
He said, “Iran obtaining nuclear weapons is not only a threat to Israel and the entire region but also a danger for the world’s security architecture,” underlining Germany’s efforts to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear arms.
While the poem contains no criticism of the Islamic Republic at all, Grass later responded to criticism of his poem by saying that Tehran is deserving of criticism for its policies.
In an interview with Sued-deutsche Zeitung, he also said that he meant to focus on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and not the Israeli state. “The man who damages Israel the most at the moment is, in my opinion, Netanyahu, and I should have included that in the poem.” Grass said Netanyahu’s policies “are creating ever more enemies of Israel and are increasing the country’s isolation.” Grass said that if he were to write the poem all over he would “avoid the generic term ‘Israel’ and show more clearly that this is above all about Netanyahu’s current government.”
Before Grass acknowledged that, Iranian Deputy Culture Minister Javad Shamaqdari wrote a laudatory letter. “I read your literary work of human and historical responsibility and it cautions beautifully. Telling the truth in this way may awaken the silent and dormant conscience of the West. Writers are able single-handedly to prevent human tragedies in a way that armies cannot,” Shamaqdari wrote.
Grass, author of the much-acclaimed anti-war novel “The Tin Drum,” shocked his admirers in 2006 when he revealed, six decades after World War II, that he had been a member of the notorious Waffen SS.
Germany’s most influential media commentators were almost unanimous in their criticism of the poem, saying Grass had offered up a one-sided portrayal of Israel as the aggressor and Iran as a victim of a mortal threat.
“Never before in the history of the republic has a prominent intellectual waged a battle against Israel in such a clichÈ-ridden way,” wrote the website of news weekly Der Spiegel.
Wolfgang Gehrcke of the far-left Die Linke party, the successor to the old Communist Party, was just about the only political figure to defend Grass in public, saying he had the “courage” to express “what is widely kept silent.”
In the poem, Grass called for “unhindered and permanent control of Israel’s nuclear capability and Iran’s atomic facilities through an international body.”
The poem specifically criticized Israel for claiming the right to strike Iran first with its nuclear weapons, which would “wipe out the Iranian people,” although Israel has made no threat to use nuclear weapons against Iran nor even hinted at that. All the discussion has been over conventional bombing of nuclear installations.
Grass did not make any reference to repeated Iranian pronouncements that Israel should be eliminated as a state, but made what some saw as an oblique reference by saying the Iranian people are “subjugated by a loudmouth.”
In Israel, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu swiftly denounced the poem as “shameful.” Netanyahu issued a statement saying, “It is Iran, not Israel, that threatens the destruction of other states.”
Emmanuel Nahshon, deputy chief of mission at the Israeli embassy in Berlin, was especially harsh. “What must be said is that it belongs to 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 matzo [unleavened bread]. Today it is the Iranian people that the Jewish state purportedly wants to wipe out.”
Nahshon said Israel was “the only state in the world whose right to exist is publicly doubted…. We want to live in peace with our neighbors in the region. We are not prepared to assume the role that Gunter Grass assigns us in the German people’s process of coming to terms with its history.”
Henryk M. Broder, a prominent German Jewish columnist, accused Grass in light of his poem of being “the prototype of the educated anti-Semite.” Broder wrote in the daily Die Welt, “Grass has always had a problem with Jews but he has never articulated it as clearly as with this ‘poem’.”