German Nobel Laureate Günter Grass Banned From Israel Over Poem

Israel has barred German author Günter Grass from entering the country.

The move is in response to a poem by Grass that accuses Israel of being a threat to world peace and compares Israel’s nuclear potential to Iran’s.

The poem was published in a German newspaper last week.

It ignited controversy in both Germany and Israel.

Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Israeli journalist and historian Tom Segev.

Read the Transcript
The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: Israel is a nation with strong democratic traditions, and right now it’s in the thick of a freedom of speech debate. Israel has barred German author Gunter Grass from entering the country. The move is in response to a poem by Grass that accuses Israel of being a threat to world peace and compares Israel’s nuclear potential to Iran’s. The poem was published in a German newspaper last week. It ignited controversy in both Germany and Israel. The Israeli interior minister said it fanned the flames of hate against Israel and the Israeli people. Tom Segev is one of Israel’s most prominent writers. He’s critical of the decision to ban Grass and says it’s more about politics than literature.

Tom Segev: Gunter Grass is not about to visit Israel, so this is a political gesture, I think a very embarrassing gesture because we don’t really want to belong to countries like Iran and Syria who give entry permits to people according to their political views. I wrote an article criticizing the poem because, mainly because I think that Gunter Grass is not an authority on nuclear strategy. He started his poem by explaining why he needs to break the silence, while in reality there is no silence concerning this subject. For months now nothing else has been debated in Israel.

Werman: And just to remind our listeners, in the poem published in this paper last week, Gunter Grass condemned German arm sales to Israel and said the Jewish state must not be allowed to launch military sets against Iran. Now, you’ve defended Gunter Grass in the past. Are you defending him now?

Segev: I think that the poem is pathetic, but I also don’t think that it’s justified to compare Israel with Iran because it is not Israel threatening the existence of Iran, but Iran threatening the existence of Israel. Also, according to Gunter Grass, the danger is that Israel will annihilate the Iranian people and that of course, is complete nonsense because we are not talking about a nuclear attack on Iran, we are talking about measures at most, measure that might prevent the Iranians from manufacturing an atomic bomb. So I really think that it is a pathetic poem, but it is in no way antisemitic. What I resented was that the Israeli embassy in Berlin immediately described this poem and in fact Gunter Grass himself as an anti-Semite and then prime minister Netanyahu said the same, and our foreign minister said the same…and they are trying to outdo each other.

Werman: You defend Gunter Grass as right to write what he wants. You are in a minority though in Israel it sounds like on this particular case. Where is the disconnect with most Israelis who don’t want him to enter the country?

Segev: I don’t know that most Israelis have an opinion about that. It is not such a big issue in Israel as it is in Germany. Most Israelis read Gunter Grass, so it’s really part of Israeli politics now, but I can tell you that most Israelis regard Gunter Grass as an anti-semite because I still believe that most Israelis are much more intelligent than the Israeli government is.

Werman: Tom Segev, a journalist and historian. He’s the author of The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust. Thank you for speaking with us.

Segev: Thank you very much.

Werman: As we mentioned, Gunter Grass’ poem has been controversial in Germany too. The World’s web producer, Michael Rass, has been monitoring German reaction to the poem. You can read Michael’s blog post about it at theworld.org. This is PRI.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.