Geoff Sifrin

TAKING ISSUE 

The big question hanging ominously over it all is: Should Israel pre-emptively bomb Iran’s nuclear reactors because of that country’s vow to destroy the Jewish state?

Israel has the capacity, and certain countries in the region would support it – reportedly even Saudi Arabia might provide an air corridor for Israeli bombers, since it shares Israel’s fear of a nuclear-empowered Iran.

Recent episodes in the Iran saga include Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial speech to the US Congress last month and intense dislike between him and US President Barack Obama.

And most recently, the understanding reached by the US and other powers with Iran to limit the latter’s possibilities of achieving a nuclear bomb any time soon, in exchange for lifting of sanctions.

What has German writer Günther Grass to do with this debate? As an anti-war icon, he sparked controversy in 2012 by publishing a poem in the Deutsche Zeitung entitled “What must be said”, claiming Israel’s nuclear capability – not Iran’s – was the threat to world peace.

He warned against an Israeli strike on Iran and said Germany should stop supplying Israel with submarines. He was criticised in Germany, Israel and by Jewish organisations and declared persona non grata in Israel.

Grass is not a crazy extremist whose views can be dismissed out of hand. A respected supporter of the left-leaning Social Democrats (SPD), he has been a voice in serious political debates in Germany. He was recognised as that country’s most important post-Second World War writer after the 1959 publication of his novel, “The Tin Drum” – dealing with Nazism’s rise in his hometown of Danzig.

He received the Nobel Prize in 1999 for his works, including “Cat and Mouse”, “Dog Days”, “From the Diary of a Snail”, and “The Flounder and The Rat”. He is a great admirer of Israeli writer Amos Oz, who he has repeatedly proposed for a Nobel Prize.

In 2006, however, Grass revealed a more than 60-year-old skeleton in his closet which shocked people – that he served with the Waffen SS during the Second World War. His devotees were outraged because of his carefully nurtured anti-war image, and because he hid his past for so long while achieving fame with his anti-Nazi rhetoric.

Grass responded that he wanted to use his memoir “Peeling the Onion” to explain his past. “What I accepted with pride in my younger years I wanted to keep quiet about after the war because of my growing shame,” he wrote.

When he published the poem “What must be said”, he was criticised even by people who admire his literary works, for his arrogance and simplistic assumptions about the complex Iran debate – which is even more complicated today as the Middle East descends into chaos, radical Islam’s influence rises and Israel’s security in that region requires ever more careful thought.

Israel has long been engrossed with this debate about a pre-emptive strike to foil Iran’s purported nuclear ambitions. Its political and defence analysts mull over the advisability and possible outcome of such an action, with its strategic and diplomatic dilemmas; heavyweights on the topic have taken contrasting positions.

Grass’ comments, coming from someone who apparently knew not much more about the practicalities than the average follower of the world news, amounted to a sort of moral grandstanding, without sufficiently factoring in Israel’s existential plight.

Great writers, however, are often considered great not because you necessarily agree with them, or like them or their views, but because they throw new light on things or challenge accepted notions.

Ultimately, writers are not necessarily smarter than other people. What they have is the ability to write. Grass’ intrusion in the Iran question raised many hackles – sometimes that is a good thing.

• Geoff Sifrin is former editor of the SAJR. He writes this column in his personal capacity.