Günter Grass has dared say publicly in a poem what needed saying: the present Netanyahu government of Israel is a potential danger to its own people, the wider region, and perhaps even to the rest of our planet. Proof of the anti-war poem’s point came pretty quickly.
During the past several days, verbal bombs have been launched at the man of letters, from all directions. With a general election and (who knows?) another war just around the corner, the aim of the Netanyahu government and its domestic and foreign supporters seems clear: to kill the old poet’s reputation, and to silence and maim anybody anywhere who dares share his opinion.
When making sense of the attacks on Grass, it’s worth noting that sections of German political society rushed to support the Israeli government. Germany’s media was suddenly awash with doubts about the integrity and motives of their leading poet. There’s since been vigorous support for both the poem, What Must Be Said, and the right of the 84-year-old Nobel Prize winner to speak his mind.
It seems bound to grow, partly because the first few commentaries on Grass went well beyond insult. Germany’s Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle seems wilfully to have misread the poem: “Putting Israel and Iran on the same moral level [the poem provides no evidence for this claim] is not ingenious but absurd.” Die Welt carried an editorial by the country’s leading Jewish writer, Henryk Broder. He insisted that Grass had always “had a problem with Jews” (that’s untrue) and “a tendency toward megalomania” (that may be true) but that “this time he is completely nuts” (readers’ call).
Germans who think this way indulge the spirit if not the substance of Angela Merkel’s 2008 widely-reported speech in Jerusalem. There she spoke of the “truth” that the security of the Israeli state belonged to Germany’s understanding of its own sovereign raison d'état. It was a peculiar speech – and strangely out of touch with strong support for Palestinian statehood and growing public discomfort among German citizens about Israel’s foreign policy behaviour.
Merkel in effect said that the Federal Republic of Germany, whatever its constitutional obligations to its own citizens, or to the rest of Europe, would protect the state of Israel, no matter what. It was sovereignty thinking at its worst. By projecting its mindset well beyond German borders, Merkel certainly outdid Carl Schmitt, the leading constitutional lawyer and political thinker of the early Nazi period. He insisted that sovereign rule, a few people arbitrarily deciding important things, such as military interventions, especially in emergency situations, should always trump the principles of power-sharing democracy and its culture of respect for openly-expressed differences.
Grass’s poem rightly rejects Merkel’s posturing, yet criticising Israel in Germany remains tricky business. Twisted guilt and sublimated shame run deep, and the old poet wants nothing of them. Practically speaking, that means he’s opposed to the sale of Dolphin-class, potentially nuclear-armed submarines by Germany to Israel on the quiet. He calls for “free and open monitoring of Israel’s and Iran’s nuclear potential and capability through an international entity that the government of both countries approve.”
Is it a thought crime to invoke the spirit of monitory democracy, “grown old, and with what ink remains”? Many Israeli commentators are sure that it is, which prompts the thought that more things need to be said, this time about the troubled state of democracy in Israel.
Founded in 1948, the settler state of Israel was a rescue operation from European genocide. It was a parliamentary democracy with a difference. Infused with the spirit of Judaism, it included a sizeable minority of Arab people. It featured free elections based on proportional representation, a directly elected prime minister, a strong independent judiciary and a robust media and civil society.
It was hardly a textbook democratic state. Powerful bodies such as the Jewish Agency, which handled Jewish immigration, and the Jewish National Fund, which owned substantial amounts of land in the name of the Jewish people, functioned from the beginning almost as states-within-a-state.
There was also the inconvenient truth that three-quarters of a million Palestinian people were forcibly expelled from their homelands. Israel’s democracy was founded on exclusion and (in effect) war against people who lost nearly everything. From the time of Athens, war on balance has been bad for the spirit and institutions of democracy. It ruins lives, stirs up fantasies of national greatness and belief in the invincibility of state power, the kind of “illusions” (Grass’s word) expressed in Ariel Sharon’s 2002 Knesset speech, when he praised Israel’s high-alert “fighting democracy”.
The Netanyahu government’s statements of recent days push in the same direction. Netanyahu himself says that Grass’s poem is “shameful”. The Israeli Embassy in Berlin denounced it as a work of Christian Europe: “What must be said is that it is a European tradition to accuse the Jews before the Passover festival of ritual murder.” Forgetting the stateless Palestinians, it cast the poet as a friend of Iran (Grass rightly calls Ahmadinejad a “loudmouth”) before adding that “Israel is the only state in the world whose right to exist is openly doubted.”
Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai meanwhile said Grass was an “anti-Semite” who once “wore an SS uniform”. The latter point is correct (Grass joined the Waffen-SS towards the end of World War II, when aged 17), but Yishai wielded it like a sword to declare him “persona non grata” and to urge he be stripped of his Nobel Prize. On Facebook, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman agreed. The poem, he wrote, revealed the “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.”
Grass actually says in his poem that Israel is “a land to which I am, and always will be, attached”. But that seems of little interest to those bent on peddling muddled syllogisms: A is B; A is therefore C; and, thus, A is B, C and no doubt D. The illogic is a bad omen, of a world beyond anything that could fairly be called democratic. Its ultimate purpose, when used as a weapon by politicians like Netanyahu, is to pin down waverers and to dog-whistle excitement among supporters at home.
The independent report contains many positive findings, including unwavering support for “democracy” and high levels of interest in “politics” among Israeli citizens. But the report also tables a few things that need to be talked about. It shows (for 2011) that there is common belief among the country’s citizens that they have no way of influencing political decisions. It reveals that a sizeable segment (nearly 30%) of non-Arab citizens are willing to ditch democracy in favour of Jewish religious law (halakha). And it reports that a clear majority of the same citizens do not think there is any significant discrimination against Arabs; that their exclusion from holding political office is nevertheless right; and that harsh public criticism of the Israeli state by anybody is wrong.
But that’s enough said for one day.
James Jenkin
EFL Teacher Trainer
John Keane asserts that Grass simply wrote an 'anti-war poem'. Therefore the heated reaction says a lot about the Israeli government's influence. Israel is trying to 'silence and maim anybody anywhere who dares share [Grass'] opinion'.
However, was the poem simply 'anti-war'? This is the premise of Keane's argument, but it's difficult to judge without seeing the poem itself.
John Keane
Professor of Politics at University of Sydney
James...thank you for this. I urge you to read the poem. It's against a further round of militarisation of the region and in this sense anti-war; but, as you rightly suggest, the whole absorbing affair, centred on the poem by Günter Grass affair, tells us much more...
James Jenkin
EFL Teacher Trainer
Thanks for your reply John! To be honest I don't understand the connotations when I read the poem (is that part of the problem?!).
For example:
It is the alleged right to the first strike
That could annihilate the Iranian people—
Subjugated by a loud-mouth
And guided to organized jubilation—
You could interpret 'organized jubilation' in different ways I guess - including that normal Israelis are excited about killing Iranians.
Peter Ormonde
Peter Ormonde is a Friend of The Conversation.
Farmer
James...
Not sure that "normal Israelis" get much of a look-in on these matters any more.
The influence of fundamentalist religious parties and ultra-nationalist groups via the coalitions that make up the Knesset seems unstoppable.
The siege atmosphere - the threat without - permeates the public discussion and the fear and intolerance creeps along like rust.
Very sad and rather terrifying.
Dale Bloom
Analyst
Germany is now believed to be the third biggest arms manufacturer in the world, behind Russia and the US.
Traditionally the US has supplied Israel with arms, and maybe Germany now wants Israel as a market also. It will be interesting to see which other Middle East countries Germany supplies arms to.
Peter Ormonde
Peter Ormonde is a Friend of The Conversation.
Farmer
Tragically excellent.
The notion of a "chosen people" winding history back to a 3,000 year old seating arrangement sits most uneasily with democracy and human rights. Geography based on a theocratic discrimination and racism is a pre-feudal and irrational idea.
And without the slightest sense of irony the nationalists build walls, set up check points and exclude on the basis of ethnicity and religion... more like Lodz or Warsaw every day.
As a result the whole region bristles with hatred and resentment. Not just the region - US politics are laced with minefields and no-go areas. And worse, the Palestinian issue - the enmity of it all, the sense of threat and the rhetoric of "the historical mission - has served to prop up and excuse ruthless regimes in many Arab countries.
This is an untenable position. There is only one possible destination. And it will be tragic. Again.
Russell Walton
Russell Walton is a Friend of The Conversation.
Retired
Informative article, so much in reporting on Israel in the MSM is just pro-Zionist propaganda.
The poem sums up the moral bankruptcy of Germany and the West in regard to Israel rather well. Why should Germans, three generations on, be collectively responsible for atrocities committed by the Nazis, what guilt needs to be assuaged by anti-Arab,pro-Israel policies?
'Anti-Semitism' seems to be the magic word that protects Israel from the criticism it so well deserves.
As to the sophistry that Israel is 'the only democracy in the region', so what?
Athens, the world's first 'democracy', was a menace to its neighbours--rapacious, hubristic and uncompromising,
Gideon Polya
Sessional Lecturer in Biochemistry for Agricultural Science at La Trobe University
A good article by Professor Keane. All praise to Gunter Grass. However it should be reiterated that the State of Israel is NOT a democracy, it is only a democracy by genocide, ethnic cleansing, expulsion, and exclusion, and remains the world's last race-based Apartheid state after the collapse of the Apartheid Israel-supported Apartheid South African regime in 1993. Some key points below.
1. Of 12 million Palestinians, only adults of 1.6 million Palestinian Israelis (13%) are permitted to vote…
Read morePeter Ormonde
Peter Ormonde is a Friend of The Conversation.
Farmer
Gideon,
I agree with everything you say. But gee mate I disagree with the way you say it.
Why is it necessary to hurl these declaratory adjectives about like confetti? Every time you mention Israel, Zionism, Jews you insert some sort of denunciation. It isn't necessary and just fuels the climate of tension and anger that surrounds the issue mate.
Less anger, more reason Gideon. It will take reasonable discussion and negotiation to resolve this situation - if it can be resolved short of some sort of regional annihilation, which I increasingly doubt.
Gideon Polya
Sessional Lecturer in Biochemistry for Agricultural Science at La Trobe University
Thanks for your agreement and your well meant comments are certainly taken on board, Peter Ormonde, but descriptives that one can dispassionately apply to anti-Arab anti-Semitic, anti-democracy, race-based, genocidal, nuclear terrorist, racist Zionist-run Apartheid Israel are terms with precise meanings and applied by outstanding anti-racist Jewish and non-Jewish scholars.
Perhaps it is my scientific background showing ( I have published over 100 scientific research papers that are necessarily…
Read morePeter Ormonde
Peter Ormonde is a Friend of The Conversation.
Farmer
Yes Gideon again I agree ... the parallels with the Boers' state are horrendously accurate... and becoming moreso.
Perhaps this pattern is inevitable when one founds a colonial settler state on a myth of a theological mythology and right. With Gaza there are even more disturbing and pertinent parallels which I alluded to above. I would argue that there are a few parallels not too far from here as well. Dispossession throws a long shadow... no matter how chosen one feels.
I had a few mates…
Read moreWilliam Bruce
Artist
I think religious fanatics and racism are not the cause of these problems it is Governments... & I suspect the Israelis are in exactly the same boat as us.
Seems a very few people have bought up "Our Governments" and also our "media owners and the narrative" and we are bombarded with war propaganda (which is a War crime). Lies that too many believe....& when things calm down we have another "incident" to "justify" more actions.
Also, importantly, the wars extend well beyond just the Mid East…
Read morePeter Ormonde
Peter Ormonde is a Friend of The Conversation.
Farmer
William,
Yes there are organisations that profit from war and conflict - which advocate deeply self-interested notions of strategic interests - but to seek to put the weight on them for creating wars is a bit light on. The fertile soil in which they plant their crop is tilled by us.
Let's have a look at who profited from our little Australian act of dispossession. The short answer is we did - not just the disproportionate share that goes to the owners of capital - but everyone who has come here and shared in the bounty of this stolen place... this land of stolen opportunity.
That is how this theft business works William - some of us are just petty crooks. That is how those who build their homes on occupied Palestinian farms see the world. Or at least how they should.
So don't go blaming just the rich and powerful. We let them do it. We share in it. These rich and powerful are our creatures. We do it through hatred, fear and by being "chosen".
William Bruce
Artist
"So don't go blaming just the rich and powerful. We let them do it."
Not doing this,...I am saying I suspect a tiny, tiny few control the political & media narrative......and the whole problem is with Governments....
People are hoodwinked by "the narrative".....eg we haer the Syrian Govt "crushing dissent" not trying to bring about law & order... also, support is achieved by people covering for their jobs and/or fear of persecution.
Jean-Paul Gagnon
Honorary Research Fellow, POLSIS and SMP at University of Queensland
I think this is a turning point - a statement that many commentators internationally have already announced. And Keane grasped exactly the thread that must be stressed as deeply and rigorously as possible: that there are many in this world and within Israel that feel their current government's foreign policies to be illegitimate. Many, if not most aware of the ubiquitous Israel/Palestine situation, in this world feel the Wall pressing on their own lungs. To me, my breathing feels constrained when…
Read moreWilliam Bruce
Artist
"To call these crimes to account is needed".....crime and selective prosecution is the whole problem.
Perhaps citizens everywhere might group together and take legal action...trouble is many laws can't be enforced....but there will be positive political ramifications.
David Beirman
Senior Lecturer Tourism at University of Technology, Sydney
It takes no courage in Europe to pen an epistle critical of Israel. Israel bashing is a continental-wide activity of European academics.John's claim that all 750,000 Palestinian refugees were forcibly ejected in 1948 from the land that became the state of Israel is simply false and anyone with even a small amount of knowledge of the Arab-Israel conflict knows this. Some certainly were but the majority did as most refugees in the midst of a war do and fled the conflict zone. However, unlike the refugees…
Read morePeter Ormonde
Peter Ormonde is a Friend of The Conversation.
Farmer
David,
So we'd be going for a first strike on the Iranian nukes then? Just in case?
And then they'd retaliate and it's on isn't it?
I'm not too sure about the two state solution - less of a bad thing I guess. The Palestinians and others might settle for that. But I don't think it will "solve" the problem Israel faces with its neighbours. And even the two state option is off the table as far as the current government is concerned and any efforts at peace talks seem rather pointless…
Read moreDavid Beirman
Senior Lecturer Tourism at University of Technology, Sydney
In rely to Peter Ormonde may I make it clear so that even you understand it that I am not advocating an Isaeli strike on Iran. I am merely discussing the terms of the internal debate in Israel. Spare me and the readers of The Conversation an exercise in sophistry.and spin. .
Peter Ormonde
Peter Ormonde is a Friend of The Conversation.
Farmer
David...
you wrote:
"Is John suggesting that Israel only has a right to strike Iranian nuclear targets after Tel Aviv or Jerusalem are obliterated ? Grass's poem assumes, incorrectly that Isreal is planning to annihilate the Iranian people. The military debate in israel centres around a tactical stike aimed at facilities which house the nuclear threat to Israel, not attacks against Iranian population centres. Even the most bellicose supporters of a military option in Israel have made it clear that they prefer a diplomatic solution to Iran's nuclear program as opposed to a mutually destructive miliary option."
Peter Ormonde
Peter Ormonde is a Friend of The Conversation.
Farmer
Sorry ... wrong button ... see how easy it is!
Now preferring a "diplomatic" solution is all well and good - but what that says is that - if diplomacy isn't an option (and when has it ever been) - then we are left with the unpalatable military strike.
The first sentence is the tell David... gives the game away I'm afraid. It means that Israel - even those like yourself who would prefer a diplomatic solution - will not permit Iran or indeed any of it's neighbours to have nuclear weapons. It would make life unbearable. And they are of course quite right.
So how do we actually solve this problem - what must change to make Israel acceptable to its neighbours, to build acceptance and trust?
David Beirman
Senior Lecturer Tourism at University of Technology, Sydney
Unfortunately for much of the Arab and Islamic world the only acceptable Israel is no Israel. The Islamic concept of Dhimi places the other peoples of the book, namely Jews and Christians as tolerable within the midst of Islamic societies provided they accept their place as subject peoples. The existence of a Jewish state of Israel in any shape or form is an affront to Islamists (not to all Arabs). This was the key reason why the Arab world opposed partition in 1947 and the key reason why most Arab…
Read morePeter Ormonde
Peter Ormonde is a Friend of The Conversation.
Farmer
Yes the neighbours are not going to change David. Neither apparently is Israel.
Nothing is going to change. It will just get worse.
And I would take very little comfort from the Arab Spring I'm afraid. A significant proportion of the grassroots opposition to the old dictatorships is deeply hostile to Israel. I would not expect Egypt's Moslem Brotherhood to be anything like Sadat or Mubarek in their international approach. Same in Libya if that ever sorts itself out. And Syria... In other…
Read moreRussell Walton
Russell Walton is a Friend of The Conversation.
Retired
Yes, religion aside there is another compelling reason why Arabs rejected the partition of Palestine, it's essentially the right of any people to resist the invader. The facile portrayal of Israel as on the front line against the Islamic menace is a smokescreen, Israel is fighting a colonial war against the Palestinians. The corrupt and oppressive nature of Arab regimes is not relevant to the human rights issue and Palestinian suffering.
I don't expect Israelis to leave what is now their homeland…
Read moreWilliam Bruce
Artist
"The constant expansion of the 'settlements' reveals the real intentions of Israel's government."
Says it all!!
John Harland
bicycle technician
A Law of Return. Hmm, I used to dream of that too.
Then Britain joined the EU and Australian people of British descent became foreigners.
That's the way it works in most of the World. Just one or two generations, or a change of legislation, and you are a foreigner.
But what if I could claim right of "return" to any or all of the countries in which my ancestors had lived over the past 2000 years? What if each of those countries was prepared to eject existing landholders to make way for me?
I'd have to be dreaming, wouldn't I? That's like a six-year-old's fantasy.
William Bruce
Artist
I think at the moment you can still return to the UK if you have a UK Grandparent.