Comments by any Western intellectual claiming, as did Grass, that it is Israel, not Iran, which is a threat to world peace would have evoked criticism and condemnation. The fact that they were made by a German raises the decibel level dramatically. And the fact that they were made by an individual who for decades concealed that he volunteered to serve in the Waffen SS, the German killing machine of Jews during World War II, brings the reaction to still another level.

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Words from Abe Foxman …. not me.

Words that fit into the mentality and dishonesty of one of the most hateful individuals in the United States.

Words that prove Gunter Grass is correct in his assessment of Israel being a threat to world peace.

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See for yourself, first the poem and then the hate that follows…

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What must be said

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Why have I been silent, silent for so long?,

Our generals have gamed it out,

Confident the west will survive.

We people have not even been considered.

What is this right to “preventive war”?

A war that could erase the Iranian people.

Dominated by it’s neighbor, pulsing with righteousness

Smug in the fact that it is they, not Iran,

Who have the Bomb.

Why have I so far avoided to identify Israel by it’s name?,

Israel and it’s ever increasing nuclear arsenal,

Beyond reproach, Uncontrolled, uninspected.

We all know these things

Yet we all remain silent, fearful of being labeled:

anti-Semitic

hateful

worse

Considering Germany’s past these labels stick

So we call is “business”, “reparation” take your pick,

As we deliver yet another submarine.

As we provide to Israel the means to deliver annihilation.

I say what must be said.

Why did I stay silent until now?

Because I’m German, of course.

I’m tainted by a stain I cannot wash out

I’m silent because I want so badly to make it right

To put my sins in the past and leave them silently there.

Why did I wait to say it until now?

And write these words with the last of my ink?

Declaring that Israel threatens world peace?

Because it is true and it must be said,

Tomorrow will be too late.

We Germans now carry a new burden of sin on our shoulders

Through the weapons we have sold

We are helping to carry out this foreseeable tragedy

No excuse will remove our stain of complicity.

It must be said. I won’t be silent

I’ve had enough of the hypocrisy;

Please shed the silence with me,

The consequences are all too predictable.

It’s time to demand free and permanent control

of BOTH Israel’s nuclear arsenal

AND Iran’s nuclear facilities

enforced with international supervision.

It’s the only way, in a land convulsed with insanity,

Israelis, Palestinians, everybody, will survive.

And we too, will survive.

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After reading and hearing the words to the controversial poem, can you honestly say there is anything any Semitic about it? Below is what Foxman sees, hopefully none of my readers will… From the title alone you can see the defamation spread by the man paid (quite well I must add) to fight it.

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What Gunter Grass Really Said

Nobel Laureate Accused Israel of Planning Genocide

getty images Grotesque Inversion: Gunter Grass’s effort to blame Israel for defending itself against the Iranian nuclear threat is a massive distortion of the facts.

By Abraham Foxman



Comments by any Western intellectual claiming, as did Grass, that it is Israel, not Iran, which is a threat to world peace would have evoked criticism and condemnation. The fact that they were made by a German raises the decibel level dramatically. And the fact that they were made by an individual who for decades concealed that he volunteered to serve in the Waffen SS, the German killing machine of Jews during World War II, brings the reaction to still another level.

Let’s be clear: If it were not Grass, but any public figure in the West who offered the substance of Grass’s poem — that Israel, by threatening to use military force against Iran’s nuclear facilities, is, rather than Iran itself, a threat to world peace — that individual would deserve severe condemnation.

Iranian leaders say openly that Israel should not exist, and the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, repeatedly asserts that Israel will disappear in the years ahead.

This is the regime most closely associated with international terrorism — the bombings of the Israeli embassy and Jewish community headquarters in Buenos Aires, Argentina, are among the most notable examples. To have such a regime in possession of nuclear weapons would present the greatest danger facing civilization since the advent of the nuclear age.

Of course, Grass is not just any intellectual or public figure. He is a leading German writer, and he is an individual whose late admission that he was a member of the SS puts him in a special situation. To pre-empt the expected reaction, Grass erects a straw man by saying that he wanted to say what he said for some time but did not because he knew he would be accused of anti-Semitism. But now, he says, in moralistic tones, he has to speak no matter the consequences.

What is so stark about this episode is not that a German cannot ever criticize Israeli policies; indeed, criticisms surface in many instances. Rather, it is the complete absence of empathy by this German writer with the people of Israel facing a terrible dilemma — what to do in the face of an existential threat to the Jewish state more than 70 years after the Holocaust? To me, this is the great sin committed here.

German atonement for the murder of 6 million Jews and millions of others in the Holocaust does not mean that the Germans have to agree with everything Israel or Jews do and say in the world today. It should mean, if it has any validity at all, that there should be recognition that the Jewish people may be in special danger and under a unique threat, and that Germans need to experience and identify with that threat in a way that others in the world might not.

But Grass goes even further than lack of empathy. He converts an Israeli defensive option into one that he describes as a project to destroy the Iranian people. Whatever one thinks of an Israeli military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, to see that as trying to destroy Iran is an inversion so grotesque that it must be labeled as an effort to equate Israel with the Nazi regime. In other words, it is anti-Semitism.

One may never know what was going on in Grass’s head and heart these many decades. But there it is, surfacing again for all to see. Fortunately, some German leaders have stepped forward to condemn Grass for his anti-Israel screed. Now, it is important to hear the voices of more German political leaders, who need to speak out and make clear that this type of rhetoric is beyond the bounds of decency.

This was published at the Forward ..