April 5, 2012

EDITOR: The right to criticise Israel

Günter Grass, who has first concealed the fact that he fought in the Waffen SS during WWII, then reveled it in his autobiography, is obviously in an especially exposed position, though why this past forever marks him is also a interesting issue, when war criminals are running the world today with total immunity. However, this is not just an issue concerning him or his right to criticise Israel – basically, no one has the right to criticise Israel, the exceptional state, in a permanent Agambean state of exception, not subject to normal rules and legislation, and above and beyond all scruples and human judgement. This incredible immunity for all Israel crimes is indeed a subject not fully discussed or understood, as well as the complex machinery of propaganda and persuasion which makes it so. If Grass poem is about What Must Be Said, Israel’s machinery manages to make sure that It Cannot Be Said!

Günter Grass launches poetry attack on Israel: Guardian

German Nobel literature laureate Günter Grass says Israel is a threat to world peace in his poem What Must Be Said

Günter Grass: poem criticises Israel's 'claim to the right of first strike' against Iran. Photograph: John Macdougall/AFP/Getty Images

German Nobel literature laureate Günter Grass labelled Israel a threat to “already fragile world peace” in a poem published on Wednesday that drew sharp rebukes at home and from Israel.

In the poem, titled What Must be Said, published in German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung and Italy’s La Repubblica among others, Grass criticises what he describes as western hypocrisy over Israel’s own suspected nuclear programme amid speculation it might engage in military action against Iran to stop it building an atomic bomb.

The 84-year-old Grass said he had been prompted to put pen to paper by Berlin’s recent decision to sell Israel a submarine able to “send all-destroying warheads where the existence of a single nuclear bomb is unproven”.

“The nuclear power Israel is endangering the already fragile world peace,” he wrote. His poem specifically criticises Israel’s “claim to the right of a first strike” against Iran.

Grass also called for “unhindered and permanent control of Israel’s nuclear capability and Iran’s atomic facilities through an international body”.

Grass did not mention calls for the destruction of Israel that have been made by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but obliquely referred to the Iranian people being “subjugated by a loudmouth”.

Israel is widely believed to have an arsenal of nuclear weapons but has never admitted it, pursuing instead an official policy of “ambiguity” to deter potential attackers.

Israel has three Dolphin submarines from Germany – one half-funded and two entirely funded by Berlin – two more are under construction, and the contract for a sixth submarine was signed last month.

Dolphin-class submarines can carry nuclear-tipped missiles, but there is no evidence Israel has armed them with such weapons.

Iran insists it only seeks nuclear power for energy and medical research.

Grass said he long kept silent on Israel’s own nuclear programme because his country committed “crimes that are without comparison”, but he has come to see that silence as a “burdensome lie and a coercion” whose disregard carries a punishment – “the verdict ‘antisemitism’ is commonly used”.

The left-leaning Grass established himself as a leading literary figure with The Tin Drum, published in 1959, and won the Nobel Prize in 1999. He urged fellow Germans to confront their painful Nazi history in the decades after the second world war.

However, his image suffered when he admitted in his 2006 autobiography that he was drafted into the Waffen-SS, the combat arm of the Nazis’ paramilitary organisation, in the final months of the war.

Grass’s comments swiftly drew sharp criticism on Wednesday.

“What must also be said is that Israel is the world’s only nation whose right to exist is publicly questioned,” the Israeli embassy in Germany said in a statement. “We want to live in peace with our neighbours in the region.”

“Günter Grass is turning the situation upside-down by defending a brutal regime that not only disregards but openly violates international agreements for many years,” said Deidre Berger, director of the American Jewish Committee in Berlin.

“Iran is the threat for world peace – and Israel the only democracy in the entire region, and at the same time the world’s only whose right to exist is openly questioned,” said Charlotte Knobloch, a former leader of Germany’s Jewish community.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, is a staunch ally of Israel, and her spokesman reacted coolly to Grass’s remarks.

“There is artistic freedom in Germany, and there thankfully also is the freedom of the government not to have to comment on every artistic production,” Steffen Seibert said.

The head of the German parliament’s foreign affairs committee – lawmaker Ruprecht Polenz, a member of Merkel’s Christian Democrats – told the daily Mitteldeutsche Zeitung that Grass was a great author “but he always has difficulties when he speak about politics and mostly gets it wrong”.

“The country that worries us is Iran,” he was quoted as saying, adding that “his poem distracts attention from that”.

Günter Grass: ‘What Must Be Said’: Guardian

Poem published in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, has created a heated debate in both Germany and Israel

What must be said

Why have I kept silent, held back so long,

on something openly practiced in

war games, at the end of which those of us

who survive will at best be footnotes?

It’s the alleged right to a first strike

that could destroy an Iranian people

subjugated by a loudmouth

and gathered in organized rallies,

because an atom bomb may be being

developed within his arc of power.

Yet why do I hesitate to name

that other land in which

for years—although kept secret—

a growing nuclear power has existed

beyond supervision or verification,

subject to no inspection of any kind?

This general silence on the facts,

before which my own silence has bowed,

seems to me a troubling lie, and compels

me toward a likely punishment

the moment it’s flouted:

the verdict “Anti-semitism” falls easily.

But now that my own country,

brought in time after time

for questioning about its own crimes,

profound and beyond compare,

is said to be the departure point,

(on what is merely business,

though easily declared an act of reparation)

for yet another submarine equipped

to transport nuclear warheads

to Israel, where not a single atom bomb

has yet been proved to exist, with fear alone

the only evidence, I’ll say what must be said.

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—burdend 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.

No other course offers help

to Israelis and Palestinians alike,

to all those living side by side in emnity

in this region occupied by illusions,

and ultimately, to all of us.

–Günter Grass

Translated by Breon Mitchell

EDITOR: The Land of Lawlessness and Racist Violence

In the centre of Hebron, Israel again proves its system of legal and military control of its occupation is not just arbitrary and unjust, but a system set up for one aim only – to support and further the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and from their country. The details are of course superfluous and typical – what is more enduring are the principles – a Kafkaesque system of oppression set up on racist grounds to separate Palestinians from their land by whatever means, and to settle Jews on it. The rest is detail.

Israeli PM halts eviction of hardline Jewish settlers in Hebron: Gaurdian

Binyamin Netanyahu overrules defence minister who said settlers lacked purchase permit for three-storey property

Israeli policemen guard the Palestinian house in Hebron, West Bank, that was taken over by scores of Jewish settlers last week. Photograph: Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images

The Israeli prime minister has intervened to prevent the eviction of hardline Jewish settlers from a house in the tense West Bank city of Hebron, despite a Palestinian family’s insistence that they are the legal owners of the property.

Binyamin Netanyahu overruled his defence minister Ehud Barak, who had ordered the eviction of scores of settlers from the property on the grounds that they had not secured a permit for purchase from the Israeli authorities in the West Bank.

In a boost to the settlers, Netanyahu demanded the eviction be delayed to allow an investigation, for which no timeframe was given. A deadline of 3pm on Tuesday for the settlers to leave voluntarily passed without action being taken.

David Wilder, a spokesman for the 500 settlers in Hebron, said: “This is not the end of the story, it’s the beginning. After this, there will be more.” Asked if settlers were seeking to acquire more Palestinian houses in the heart of the city, he declined to comment.

A large group of settlers moved into the house, close to the religious site known as the Tomb of the Patriarchs to Jews and the Ibrahim Mosque to Muslims, in the early hours of last Thursday under police and army protection. The settlers said the property, which they renamed Beit Hamachpela (House of the Patriarchs), had been legitimately purchased.

According to Hazem Abu Rajab, 25, a member of the extended Palestinian family living in the large three-storey property, the occupants were woken at around 1am by Israeli soldiers, armed and wearing black, who broke down three doors to the house. “Within five minutes, 100-150 settlers were inside,” he said.

The family insisted it had the deeds and other documentation, and pointed out that anyone legitimately purchasing a property would use keys rather than break down doors. “There was a lot of tension and confrontation,” said Abu Rajab.

The house had had multiple owners as it had been successively inherited by the original owner’s sons, grandsons and great-grandsons, he said. “If the settlers did buy, it was from one owner out of many. This house belongs to the whole family.” Fifteen members of the family were still in possession of a small section of the property on Tuesday.

The settlers say they submitted documentation to the Israeli authorities showing they had bought the house from a Palestinian man who in turn bought it from a member or members of the family. The man is reported to have been detained by the Palestinian security services and his role in the sale is being investigated.

The Civil Administration, the Israeli governing body in the West Bank, said the settlers had failed to obtain the required permit to purchase property in the occupied territory, and were therefore ordered to evacuate the house.

The Israeli authorities were also believed to be concerned about the provocative potential of the takeover in the most febrile area of the West Bank.

Around 500 hardline settlers live in a closed military zone in the heart of Hebron protected by a large military presence. The city is home to 180,000 Palestinians.

Khaled Osaily, mayor of Hebron, said the sale of the house was fraudulent. “Everything is forged [and] it is not for the first time,” he told Israel Army Radio. “The person who sold to them is not the owner of the house. There was a forgery and I am certain about what I am saying.”

According to Wilder, the Israeli authorities had confirmed that the settlers’ documentation was “100% in order”, but the demand to evacuate the house stemmed from “political reasons”. He denied the settlers’ takeover was provocative, saying: “Any normal community wants to be able to grow, live normally, buy houses.”

Several Israeli cabinet ministers have publicly backed the settlers. “As soon as it is clear the purchase is legitimate and that there were no rights violations committed, the Israeli government should support the settlers,” said transport minister Yisrael Katz, who visited the house on Tuesday.