Gunter Grass’ anti-Israel poem has caused such an outcry that Benjamin Netanyahu has already condemned it, along with hundreds of other intellectuals. The poem has only been published in German but The Guardian has translated and excerpted a few lines.
The most thorough dismantling of Grass came from Anshel Pfeffer, writing in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz:
“Logic and reason are useless when a highly intelligent man, a Nobel laureate no less, does not understand that his membership in an organization that planned and carried out the wholesale genocide of millions of Jews disqualified him from criticizing the descendants of those Jews for developing a weapon of last resort that is the insurance policy against someone finishing the job his organization began.”
One thought on “Gunter Grass’ Anti-Israel Poem”
Gut, Wave, and Nerve Review
(a poem in response to Letter-poem to Grass: If We Go, Everyone Goes by Israeli poet Itamar Yaoz-Kest)
He witness.
How are yah?
I’m hurting,
Claiming responsibility world said.
Veronica
Can’t get out.
Probably
Superior
That’s her state-run TV.
To think captain
Come back to it
In a world filled with war.
All this mischief,
All this dustbin,
All this problem,
The fault of the neighbors.
We’re gonna annihilate the world
In an open letter to Samson.
There stand atonement?
I don’t understand.
Waitin’
Israel
A little more flavor from you
Of brother
And school.
Now,
You didn’t
Give a crossing for him.
Is he White?
He isn’t Jewish.
(An open parallel.)
What about that up here Nancy?
A White one
Grow by the principles
Grown from the elements
A Jewish state.
Her individual dawn
If I am a common thinker.
Now what do we do with Adam?
Exterminate further?
No that dead show.
Gimmie my flashlight.
(Illuminates the room.)
I’m not comin’ back.
Oh you’re not comin’ back?
You’re defenseless
(He was a real loud photographer.
Here I might be able to help him.)
In hold humanity,
The change I’m not really supposed to tell.
Then tell.
No matter who’s walking
They’ll have a right of crossing.
Change now ahead.
Consider it done.
There’s victory in there somewhere.
What are you talking about?
On the other hand,
Why don’t you shut your mouth?
Good idea,
Now I’m uncle on the floor
In a blue outfit.
Even spiritual
You’re gonna wanna beat me up.
I’m lensing
Right here:
The parentheses around Spirit will be taken off –
Spiritual victory.
We’ll all be in a different world.
Slowly
Abigail,
We’re all livin’ in this one.
I just wanted you to see it
Through the lens
Of poetry’s nodule.
Not secular,
No religion.
Is he dead or alive?
No, this is not heaven.
At the rift.
Picket no longer.
Are you gonna tell me about this neighborhood?
Somebody last screamed it.
I ain’t exercisin’ no new restraints.
This is the only kind one of a people,
Superman’s brother,
A tough customer,
Earth activated.
Just think,
You’re part of it
Whole thing,
A full nelson,
And we got our full moon.
A camera
Analogy with pain
Put the broad on our feet,
The teacup
While our hairs are going down.
The world is so very small.
Put in our face
Everybody
As you.
Touch it
To see where I’m going.
What do you take me for?
I’m not blaming you.
In that camera
Is our hopscotch item,
Toll we count.
Better than a machine gun.
Coming events
We take a peer at
In a nodule.
I’m fixin’ your plate,
Mine too by the looks of it.
Will you look at that?
Out of danger.
Before I forget,
God makes this perfect.
You take it home.
Good idea.