Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has lashed out at Nobel laureate Gunther Grass over a poem. Photo / Getty Images
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has lashed out at Nobel laureate Gunther Grass over a poem. Photo / Getty Images
Israel has declared the German Nobel laureate, Gunther Grass, "persona non grata" following the publication of his poem suggesting that the Jewish State poses a greater threat to world peace than Iran.
The author, 84, was forced to defend his poem after drawing accusations of penning an anti-Semitic tract, sayingthat his criticism was directed at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and not Israel as a whole.
After the work was published in a German newspaper last week, Netanyahu accused the author of "shameful moral equivalence" and suggested that his criticisms derived from his time in the Waffen-SS during World War II.
Interior Minister Eli Yishai said yesterday that Grass would in future be barred from entering the country.
"Grass's poems are an attempt to guide the fire of hate towards the State of Israel ... and to advance the ideas of which he was a public partner in the past, when he wore the uniform of the SS," Yishai said, adding that if the author wants to publicise "his distorted and false works, I suggest he do it in Iran, where he will find a supportive audience".
In his poem What must be said, Grass said Israel endangered a fragile world peace and warned that it could wipe out the Iranian people with a "first strike" to stop Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
He acknowledged that his words might be taken for anti-Semitism, but said he felt it was imperative to speak out. Grass is best known for his anti-war novel The Tin Drum.
