The Israelis have gone feral about the poem written by leading and well-know German poet, Guenther Grass. Needless to say what has been overlooked, as Gideon Levy points out in his op-ed piece on Haaretz are the underlying statements made and message from Grass - which ought not be ignored. As always, Israel, and the wider Jewish community, ignore the elephant in the room. The entire issue of the Palestinians, the West Bank and Gaza and the treatment of Arabs / Palestinians in Israel.
Grass' "What Must Be Said" does contain things that must be said. It can and should be said that Israel's policy is endangering world peace. His position against Israeli nuclear power is also legitimate. He can also oppose supplying submarines to Israel without his past immediately being pulled out as a counterclaim. But Grass exaggerated, unnecessarily and in a way that damaged his own position. Perhaps it is his advanced age and his ambition to attract a last round of attention, and perhaps the words came forth all at once like a cascade, after decades during which it was almost impossible to criticize Israel in Germany.
That's the way it is when all criticism of Israel is considered illegitimate and improper and is stopped up inside for years. In the end it erupts in an extreme form. Grass' poem was published only a few weeks after another prominent German, the chairman of the Social Democratic Party, Sigmar Gabriel, wrote that there is an apartheid regime in Hebron. He also aroused angry responses. Therefore it is better to listen to the statements and, especially, finally, to lift the prohibition against criticizing Israel in Germany.
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