For decades, the German Nobel Prize-winning novelist Gunter Grass has posed as the conscience of Germany. He never missed an opportunity to denounce what he saw as the moral failings of his inferiors. He denounced America for the arms race with the Soviet Union. He denounced his fellow Germans for failing to face up to their Nazi past. The only thing he never denounced was himself. Then, in 2006, he admitted in his memoirs that he himself had been a member of the Waffen-SS, though he was careful to stipulate that he never pulled the trigger of his gun. His reputation took a beating, but Grass was undaunted.
Now, Grass has found a new target to denounce for posing a "threat to world peace": Israel. His language is wild and fevered and calumniatory. We learn from the quondam SS member that Israel, not Iran, is the source of all the problems in the Middle East. In a poem published in the Suddeutsche Zeitung today called "What Must Be Said," Grass announces that Israel is plotting to "wipe out" Iran. At the same time, Germany is culpable for jeopardizing freedom and encouraging war by selling Israel submarines whose missiles could be deployed against Iran:
"We could be suppliers to a crime that can be foreseen, which is why none of the usual excuses would erase it. I will be silent no longer, because I am sick of the West's hypocrisy."
There are many things wrong with Grass's feculent statements. First and most obvious is that a former member of the SS has no moral standing, to put it mildly, to criticize Israel. Breaking his silence, as he puts it, is not a matter of courage but, rather, a disgrace. It is also the case that once again, he is engaged in an inversion of reality that is symptomatic of the German Left, which routinely castigated America, not the Soviet Union, as the bad guy on the international scene. Iran, not Israel, is the power that has been issuing threats, which include wiping Israel off the face of the globe. Finally, Grass flatters himself. He is trying to personify the role of the German novelist as an oracle, a moral apostle who can preach to the nation. The problem is not that he has nothing to say. It is that what he is saying is poisonous.
Perhaps Grass's comments will earn him some accolades on the Far Left and Right in Germany, both of which view Israel with disdain. More serious voices in Germany are accusing Grass of anti-Semitism. Writing in the Berlin Tagesspiegel, Malte Lehming incisively observes,
seldom has a postwar German intellectual more openly and stealthily poached in the reservoir of German anti-Jewish cliches—and presented it as the result of a conscience-stricken responsiblity for freedom.
Now, anti-Semitism is a charge that is flung about too frequently against critics of Israel. Unfortunately, in this instance it is fully deserved. Here is what must be said: Grass has achieved the impossible. He has further besmirched his reputation.
Comments
There are a lot of things that can and have been said about Gunter Grass poem, and the storm it has aroused ctd. world wide. However, one thing that appears to be a projection on the by me highly respected Jakob Heilbrunn's statement that Grass's poem's language: "... is wild and fevered and calumniatory." Here a few stanzas and then the link to The Guardian's translation and its original:http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/apr/05/gunter-grass-israel-poem-iranBut why have I kept silent till now?Because I thought my own origins,Tarnished by a stain that can never be removed,meant I could not expect Israel, a landto which I am, and always will be, attached,to accept this open declaration of the truth.Why only now, grown old,and with what ink remains, do I say:Israel's atomic power endangersan already fragile world peace?Because what must be saidmay be too late tomorrow;and because – burdened enough as Germans –we may be providing material for a crimethat is foreseeable, so that our complicitywil not be expunged by anyof the usual excuses.And granted: I've broken my silencebecause I'm sick of the West's hypocrisy;and I hope too that many may be freedfrom their silence, may demandthat those responsible for the open danger we face renounce the use of force,may insist that the governments ofboth Iran and Israel allow an international authorityfree and open inspection ofthe nuclear potential and capability of both.=====================Warum schweige ich, verschweige zu lange,was offensichtlich ist und in Planspielengeübt wurde, an deren Ende als Überlebendewir allenfalls Fußnoten sind.Es ist das behauptete Recht auf den Erstschlag,der das von einem Maulhelden unterjochteund zum organisierten Jubel gelenkteiranische Volk auslöschen könnte,weil in dessen Machtbereich der Baueiner Atombombe vermutet wird.Doch warum untersage ich mir,jenes andere Land beim Namen zu nennen,in dem seit Jahren - wenn auch geheimgehalten -ein wachsend nukleares Potential verfügbaraber außer Kontrolle, weil keiner Prüfungzugänglich ist?Das allgemeine Verschweigen dieses Tatbestandes,dem sich mein Schweigen untergeordnet hat,empfinde ich als belastende Lügeund Zwang, der Strafe in Aussicht stellt,sobald er mißachtet wird;das Verdikt "Antisemitismus" ist geläufig.Jetzt aber, weil aus meinem Land,das von ureigenen Verbrechen,die ohne Vergleich sind,=================================Grass goes out of his way to acknowledge the unique German guilt [which was the consensus after what was known as the Historiker Streit in the 90s in Germany] and something akin to the mark of Cain that he himself bears [for allowing himself to be drafted into the Waffen-SS at age 17 and serving in it during the end of the war] and perhaps also for having been fooled into a belief in the Nazi ideology as a boy... Grass's approach is very careful, not heated, very well considered, very knowing of the fire-storm that his poem might produce. What if it had also been a really good political poem of the kind that Bert Brecht knew how to write. At any event, the embers of this firestorm are being recorded, heaps of them at : http://goaliesanxiety.blogspot.com/2012/04/gunter-grass-what-must-be-said.html There are also quite a few Jewish defenders of Grass, chief amongst which would seem to be http://www.derisraelit.org/2012/04/was-gesagt-werden-muss-solidaritat-mit_06.html and violent attacks from Bernard Henry Levy and others.All this about a poem that addresses a subject that is a commonplace in Think Tank and political discussion in the United States and world wide: is the Netanyahu government's threat to go it alone a major threat to world peace. What an op-ed in poem form can do!respectfullyhttp://www.facebook.com/mike.roloff1?ref...