AJC Outraged by Gunter Grass Poem Attacking Israel

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Apr 04, 2012, 01:29 ET

NEW YORK, April 4, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- AJC is outraged by German author Gunter Grass' latest published assault on Israel.

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In his poem, "What Must Be Said," published today in a leading German newspaper, Suddeutsche Zeitung, the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature depicts Israeli policies as a threat to world peace, and specifically warns that Israel "could wipe out the Iranian people" with a "first strike" due to the threat it sees in Iran's nuclear program.

"Grass pulled the wool over the eyes of the German people and the world for 60 years, hiding his participation in the Waffen SS. Now he is trying to pull the wool over the world's eyes about an Iranian regime that threatens to destroy Israel, and is building the capability to achieve its aim," said AJC Executive Director David Harris.

"Which country – democratic Israel or authoritarian, bellicose Iran – is the real menace to regional and world peace? It is Iran that has called for a world without Israel, not the other way around," said Harris. "Why can't Grass see what is so painfully obvious?"

In his poem, Grass charges that "Israel's nuclear power endangers world peace," and claims that Germany, due to the Holocaust, refrains from criticizing Israel.

"Grass already has a published record of hostile positions on Israel," said Harris. "The new Grass poem confirms that his thinking is inverted. He has reversed the aggressor and the intended victim. In doing so, he is totally out of step with his own country, and most of the world, when it comes to Iran's nuclear program and designs on Israel."

SOURCE American Jewish Committee