The latest in the Gunter Grass story. Sydney Morning Herald
Israel’s Interior Minister has barred the German author Gunter Grass from entering the country because of a poem that accuses Israel of being a threat to world peace.
Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood:
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”.
…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”.
So what? USA bars communists and various others from entry, VASTLY against the right of the American people to hear the opinions and hold conversations with these people. This tempest in a teapot is so silly, so terribly silly, and shows the Israelis as such babies.
Well, another excellent example of Israeli hypocrisy. Apparently Grass is ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ (although hard to see how his political views of Germany supplying an unstable country with nuclear subs fans any flames other than responsible concern). Israel has spent the last 50 years fanning real flames of hatred, against Muslim culture in general, and Palestinians in particular. And now they are leaving no stone unturned in fanning the flames of hatred against Iran and its citizens, none of whom actually threaten Israel in the way that Israel threatens them, daily. What a bunch of self-obsessed hypocrites who see no contradiction between their acts and their sanctimonious proclamations.
An author banned for words in a poem.Let the book burnings begin,watch the flames grow higher,as our dreams and hopes of a sober,safe and prosperous world for all go up in smoke.
Never have so few destroyed so much.
This is simply laying bear what has been clear for a long time: the way that Israel abuses the war and the Holocaust to advance its political position.
A modern country would say, “well, we disagree with his speech, but our adherence to the principles of free speech and human rights exceeds our disagreement.” It’s kind of sad when anyone shows that their critics gave them too much credit for decency.
that will really show him!