Günter Grass barred from Israel over poem

Byrnzie

Israel's apologists playing the anti-Semitism card yet again.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/ap ... rom-israel

The celebrated German author Günter Grass has been declared persona non grata in Israel following the publication of his poem warning that the Jewish state's nuclear programme was a threat to an "already fragile world peace".

...Israeli politicians and commentators said that Grass had disqualified himself from criticising Israeli policies by his service as a young man in the Nazi Waffen SS. Some said the poem was thinly disguised antisemitism, a response predicted by Grass in his poem. Netanyahu issued a statement denouncing the poem and its author.

On Sunday, Israel's interior minister Eli Yishai used a law permitting a bar on entry to former Nazis to declare Grass persona non grata for his "attempt to fan the flames of hatred against the state of Israel and its people, and thus to advance the idea to which he publicly affiliated in his past donning of the SS uniform".

Yishai's statement added: "If Gunter wants to continue to spread his twisted and lying works, I suggest he does this from Iran, where he can find a supportive audience."

Israel's foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, added his voice to the storm of criticism, saying Grass's poem was the expression of "egoism of so-called western intellectuals who are willing to sacrifice the Jewish people on the altar of crazy anti-Semites for a second time, just to sell a few more books or gain recognition".

Speaking during a meeting with the Italian prime minister, Mario Monti, Lieberman demanded condemnation from European leaders. "We have witnessed in the past how small seeds of antisemitic hate can turn into a large fire that harms all of humanity."

...Amid the torrent of denunciation, some Israeli commentators said Grass had raised an important issue and that criticism of Israeli policies was routinely portrayed as antisemitism.

Writing on the +972 website, Larry Derfner said: "Günter Grass told the truth, he was brave in telling it, he was brave in admitting that he'd been drafted into the Waffen SS as a teenager, and by speaking out against an Israeli attack on Iran, he's doing this country a great service at some personal cost while most Israelis and American Jews are safely following the herd behind Bibi [Netanyahu] over the cliff."

Gideon Levy, the Haaretz columnist, wrote that Grass and other critics of Israeli policies were "not anti-Semites, they are expressing the opinions of many people".

"Instead of accusing them, we should consider what we did that led them to express it," he said.

What Must Be Said - Günter Grass

But 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 land

to 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 endangers

an already fragile world peace?

Because what must be said

may be too late tomorrow;

and because – burdened enough as Germans –

we may be providing material for a crime

that is foreseeable, so that our complicity

wil not be expunged by any

of the usual excuses.

And granted: I've broken my silence

because I'm sick of the West's hypocrisy;

and I hope too that many may be freed

from their silence, may demand

that those responsible for the open danger we face renounce the use of force,

may insist that the governments of

both Iran and Israel allow an international authority

free and open inspection of

the nuclear potential and capability of both.

Byrnzie

Because clearly anyone who opposes an Israeli attack on Iran which will undoubtedly result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands, must be anti-Semitic.

Seriously, how much longer will people continue to pander to this bullshit?

gimmesometruth27

what a joke.

it speaks volumes that this man with a pen and paper or a keyboard is somehow dangerous or a threat because of what he wrote. i think what he is asking in that poem is a completely reasonable request. if israel wants to go to war over a suspected iranian nuclear weapons program, why on earth can't israel's nuke program, that they have never formally admitted having nuclear weapons, not be held to the same scrutiny as those that they are seemingly hell bent on attacking??

gimmesometruth27

i guess free speech is dangerous and mr grass is not responsible enough to use it freely without some sort of penalty...

MotoDC

Was he actually in the SS? Article claims he was "drafted", which implies a non-voluntary act, but I don't know enough German history to know if that's an accurate portrayal of how the SS was built.

But yeah, sorry, as far as I'm concerned, any opinion on Israel espoused by Nazis (or former Nazis) is kinda auto-disqualified. I would prefer Israel not preemptively attack Iran, but what this Grass fellow has to say about it, I couldn't care less.

Jason P

MotoDC wrote:

Was he actually in the SS? Article claims he was "drafted", which implies a non-voluntary act, but I don't know enough German history to know if that's an accurate portrayal of how the SS was built.

I know the SS was the volunteer armed force of the Third Reich and Nazi party at the beginning. It was never a formal part of the regular German armed forces, thus I don't know if its ranks were being fed by the national conscription efforts. Near the end of the war when the crap was hitting the fan, "volunteer" can take a different meaning. A WWII history buff may know more.

peacefrompaul

Jason P wrote:

MotoDC wrote:

Was he actually in the SS? Article claims he was "drafted", which implies a non-voluntary act, but I don't know enough German history to know if that's an accurate portrayal of how the SS was built.

I know the SS was the volunteer armed force of the Third Reich and Nazi party at the beginning. It was never a formal part of the regular German armed forces, thus I don't know if its ranks were being fed by the national conscription efforts. Near the end of the war when the crap was hitting the fan, "volunteer" can take a different meaning. A WWII history buff may know more.

I believe that it was all voluntary throughout the entire war. I could be wrong... You were a badass (to the party) if you joined the SS in Nazi Germany.

gimmesometruth27

having studied the third reich to some extent, from what i recall, you were not drafted into the SS, you had to qualify for them. anyone could join the SA or brownshirts, but you had to be 6 feet tall or taller and you had to show proof that your lineage was nearly pure aryan going back 3 or 4 generations to join the SS. it was glamorous and a sign of status to serve in the SS. many of them had parents who had titles and land. your every day run of the mill german soldier could not get into the SS.

that said, i am not sure how strict or lax those criteria were in 1945 when they were having old men and children defending berlin.

peacefrompaul

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

having studied the third reich to some extent, from what i recall, you were not drafted into the SS, you had to qualify for them. anyone could join the SA or brownshirts, but you had to be 6 feet tall or taller and you had to show proof that your lineage was nearly pure aryan going back 3 or 4 generations to join the SS. it was glamorous and a sign of status to serve in the SS. many of them had parents who had titles and land. your every day run of the mill german soldier could not get into the SS.

that said, i am not sure how strict or lax those criteria were in 1945 when they were having old men and children defending berlin.

Those old men and children were forced into the Heer. They were the ones surrendering while the SS continued to fight until death. I know the proof of ancestry requirement was dropped later on.

gimmesometruth27

peacefrompaul wrote:

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

having studied the third reich to some extent, from what i recall, you were not drafted into the SS, you had to qualify for them. anyone could join the SA or brownshirts, but you had to be 6 feet tall or taller and you had to show proof that your lineage was nearly pure aryan going back 3 or 4 generations to join the SS. it was glamorous and a sign of status to serve in the SS. many of them had parents who had titles and land. your every day run of the mill german soldier could not get into the SS.

that said, i am not sure how strict or lax those criteria were in 1945 when they were having old men and children defending berlin.

Those old men and children were forced into the Heer. They were the ones surrendering while the SS continued to fight until death. I know the proof of ancestry requirement was dropped later on.

at that point in the defense of berlin they were taking anyone with a pulse.

mickeyrat

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffen-SS

mysticweed

it's a great poem, though

mickeyrat

But 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 land

to which I am, and always will be, attached,

to accept this open declaration of the truth.

to acknowledge his past at the beginning , I think , gives what he writes more weight. I see nothing antisemetic in this at all. States very simply that the politicians in BOTH Israel and Iran need to be more open about these programs for the worlds sake.

redrock

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

having studied the third reich to some extent, from what i recall, you were not drafted into the SS, you had to qualify for them. anyone could join the SA or brownshirts, but you had to be 6 feet tall or taller and you had to show proof that your lineage was nearly pure aryan going back 3 or 4 generations to join the SS. it was glamorous and a sign of status to serve in the SS. many of them had parents who had titles and land. your every day run of the mill german soldier could not get into the SS.

that said, i am not sure how strict or lax those criteria were in 1945 when they were having old men and children defending berlin.

From Wiki for those who are wondering if Grass was an SS:

"Grass attended the Danzig Gymnasium Conradinum. In 1943 he became a Luftwaffenhelfer, then he was drafted into the Reichsarbeitsdienst. In November 1944, shortly after his seventeenth birthday, he volunteered for submarine service with the Kriegsmarine, "to get out of the confinement he felt as a teenager in his parents' house" which he considered, in a negative way, civic Catholic lower middle class.[8][9] However, he was not accepted by the Navy and instead was drafted into the 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg.[10] With the Panzer Division he saw active combat from February 1945 until he was wounded on 20 April 1945, captured in Marienbad and sent to an American prisoner-of-war camp. His homecountry was taken over by Soviet and Polish administration and he thus was not able to return home, finding refuge in western Germany.

His military service became the subject of debate in 2006, after he disclosed in an interview and a book that he had been conscripted into the Waffen SS while still a teenager.[11]"

Until the bit where he was drafted to the Panzer division, which mainly consisted of conscripts, he was in the 'normal' army. Wounded and captured after 5 months....

Grass was not a Nazi or SS, as 'we' generally understand SS or Nazi.

MotoDC

redrock wrote:

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

having studied the third reich to some extent, from what i recall, you were not drafted into the SS, you had to qualify for them. anyone could join the SA or brownshirts, but you had to be 6 feet tall or taller and you had to show proof that your lineage was nearly pure aryan going back 3 or 4 generations to join the SS. it was glamorous and a sign of status to serve in the SS. many of them had parents who had titles and land. your every day run of the mill german soldier could not get into the SS.

that said, i am not sure how strict or lax those criteria were in 1945 when they were having old men and children defending berlin.

From Wiki for those who are wondering if Grass was an SS:

"Grass attended the Danzig Gymnasium Conradinum. In 1943 he became a Luftwaffenhelfer, then he was drafted into the Reichsarbeitsdienst. In November 1944, shortly after his seventeenth birthday, he volunteered for submarine service with the Kriegsmarine, "to get out of the confinement he felt as a teenager in his parents' house" which he considered, in a negative way, civic Catholic lower middle class.[8][9] However, he was not accepted by the Navy and instead was drafted into the 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg.[10] With the Panzer Division he saw active combat from February 1945 until he was wounded on 20 April 1945, captured in Marienbad and sent to an American prisoner-of-war camp. His homecountry was taken over by Soviet and Polish administration and he thus was not able to return home, finding refuge in western Germany.

His military service became the subject of debate in 2006, after he disclosed in an interview and a book that he had been conscripted into the Waffen SS while still a teenager.[11]"

Until the bit where he was drafted to the Panzer division, which mainly consisted of conscripts, he was in the 'normal' army. Wounded and captured after 5 months....

Grass was not a Nazi or SS, as 'we' generally understand SS or Nazi.

Assuming wiki is right, it does seem as though his affiliation with the SS is not in the form of an evil stormtrooper of hate and genocide that most of us think of when we think SS. Not really clear from that excerpt where he stood on the whole Nazi movement, however.

peacefrompaul

MotoDC wrote:

Assuming wiki is right, it does seem as though his affiliation with the SS is not in the form of an evil stormtrooper of hate and genocide that most of us think of when we think SS. Not really clear from that excerpt where he stood on the whole Nazi movement, however.

And that is entirely possible. The Waffen were your soldiers, fighters. They fought like an army.

The Allgemeine SS were the ones that ran the camps and acted more as guards than actual soldiers.

Byrnzie

MotoDC wrote:

I would prefer Israel not preemptively attack Iran, but what this Grass fellow has to say about it, I couldn't care less.

This Grass fellow won the Nobel prize for literature.

MotoDC

Byrnzie wrote:

MotoDC wrote:

I would prefer Israel not preemptively attack Iran, but what this Grass fellow has to say about it, I couldn't care less.

This Grass fellow won the Nobel prize for literature.

Congrats, he might also be a bigot? Which wins? We've established he wasn't in the SS in the sense that most of us remember the "SS". However, the fact that he was associated with them at all leaves quite open the question of whether he was a Nazi or Nazi sympathizer. If so, I don't give a fuck if he was Homer, Shakespeare, and Faulkner reborn as one (yay, western bias in literature) -- his opinions on Israel shouldn't carry any weight. Even if you agree with the conclusions drawn from them.

Byrnzie

MotoDC wrote:

Byrnzie wrote:

MotoDC wrote:

I would prefer Israel not preemptively attack Iran, but what this Grass fellow has to say about it, I couldn't care less.

This Grass fellow won the Nobel prize for literature.

Congrats, he might also be a bigot? Which wins? We've established he wasn't in the SS in the sense that most of us remember the "SS". However, the fact that he was associated with them at all leaves quite open the question of whether he was a Nazi or Nazi sympathizer. If so, I don't give a fuck if he was Homer, Shakespeare, and Faulkner reborn as one (yay, western bias in literature) -- his opinions on Israel shouldn't carry any weight. Even if you agree with the conclusions drawn from them.

This may come as a shock to you, but not all Nazis were bad people. Most were, but some were just misguided and had no idea of what was happening to the Jews.

I take it you've heard of Oscar Schindler? He was a member of the Nazi party. Would you dismiss his opinions out of hand because of that?

You ever heard of a man named John Rabe? He's regarded as the Schindler of China. He saved the lives of approx 250,000 people during the rape of Nanjing by the Japanese.

Did you vote for George W Bush? If so, is your conscience clear today considering that you supported a President with the blood of millions on his hands?
Maybe the opinions of anyone who voted for that idiot shouldn't be given any weight today?

As for Gunter Grass, it's already been established that he was drafted into the SS.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zei ... -3,00.html
"It was not a misdeed on my part. I was drafted, as many thousands of others were. I didn't volunteer for the Waffen-SS. The end of the war liberated me from the pledge of blind obedience. After that, I knew that I would never take an oath again."

And he even opposed German reunification on the grounds that Germans still deserved to be punished for their part in WWII:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/featur ... kenos.html
'[Grass believes that] Germany still owes a debt to humanity,[...] namely the one it incurred as perpetrator of the Holocaust. Germany’s division is the price it pays for Auschwitz. [He believes that] division symbolizes Germany’s guilt and ever-present acknowledgment of its wrongdoing.'


Anyway, this is clearly just another excuse for Israel to brandish the Antisemitism card, as they will do at every available opportunity in an attempt to deflect criticism of their crimes. An attack on Iran would be a crime of massive proportions, but somehow we're being led to believe that opposing such a crime makes you an anti-Semite.

Jason P

Byrnzie wrote:

MotoDC wrote:

I would prefer Israel not preemptively attack Iran, but what this Grass fellow has to say about it, I couldn't care less.

This Grass fellow won the Nobel prize for literature.

Our current commander-in-chief won it for peace.

MotoDC

Byrnzie wrote:

This may come as a shock to you, but not all Nazis were bad people. Most were, but some were just misguided and had no idea of what was happening to the Jews.

Were they not listening to Hitler's rhetoric? You didn't have to visit the camps to know where the Nazis stood on racism. And I'll tell you what does not come as a shock to me -- that you're more willing to defend Nazis than Republicans. Hilariously sad. Sadly hilarious? Not sure.

B wrote:

Did you vote for George W Bush? If so, is your conscience clear today considering that you supported a President with the blood of millions on his hands?

I agree, B, why bother with facts when you've got really strong opinions and assumptions?