Gunter Grass Compares Israel to E. Germany
German literary giant Gunter Grass said Israel’s decision to bar him entry following publication of his controversial poem resembles the behavior of a dictatorship.
Writing in the German Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Grass said the decision puts Israel in the company of Communist-ruled East Germany and junta-ruled Myanmar – the only two regimes that ever have barred him entry.
Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai declared the Nobel Prize-winning writer persona non grata this week after Grass published a short poem that suggested that Israel’s saber-rattling on Iran was a greater threat to world peace than the prospect of a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic.
“It’s the alleged right to a first strike that could destroy an Iranian people,” Grass wrote in his poem. “Why only now, grown old, and with what ink remains, do I say: Israel’s atomic power endangers an already fragile world peace?”
After the poem sparked a firestorm of criticism in Israel and Germany, Grass said he should have phrased the poem differently to make it clear that the current Israeli government was his target, not Israel as a whole.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
