http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/content/module/2012/4/16/main-feature/1/poison-pen/e
Nobel Prize-winning German novelist—a former SS soldier, no less—accuses the state of Israel of seeking to exterminate an entire people, and the literary republic yawns. But when Israel bars its accuser from entering the country, because ex-Nazis have no place in the Jewish state, the cries of “bullying” and “censorship” nearly drown out the original accusation.
Günter Grass, the 84-year-old German writer best known for his 1959 novel The Tin Drum, published a poem earlier this month in the Süddeutsche Zeitung (a Munich daily), which was generally described as critical of Israel. “What Must Be Said,” a 69-line poem written as a first-person confession in Grass’s own voice, “breaks a long standing German taboo and publicly criticizes Israel,” Al-Jazeera cheered.