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guardian.co.uk, Thursday 5 April 2012
Günter Grass: 'What Must Be Said'
By Günter Grass
Why have I kept silent, held back so long,
Israel's atomic power endangers
an already fragile world peace?
Because what must be said.
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The New York Times April 4, 2012, 1:25 PM
Günter Grass’s Poem About Israel Provokes Intense Criticism
By JENNIFER SCHUESSLER and ALAN COWELL
Denouncing the poem on the front page of another German newspaper, Die Welt, Henryk M. Broder, the author of “A Jew in the New Germany,” called Mr. Grass, “the prototype of the educated anti-Semite who means well toward Jews. He is hounded by guilt and feelings of shame but at the same time driven to reconcile history.” (Mr. Broder’s article also incorrectly stated that the poem would also be published in The New York Times.
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SPIEGEL ONLINE 04/06/2012
A View on Günter Grass
Why We Need an Open Debate on Israel
A Commentary by Jakob Augstein
A great poem it is not. Nor is it a brilliant political analysis. But the brief lines that Günter Grass has published under the title "What Must Be Said" will one day be seen as some of his most influential words. They mark a rupture. It is this one sentence that we will not be able to ignore in the future: "The nuclear power Israel is endangering a world peace that is already fragile."
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HAARETZ Published 00:51 08.04.12
Israelis can be angry with Gunter Grass, but they must listen to him
By Gideon Levy
After we denounce the exaggeration, after we shake off the unjustified part of the charge, we must listen to the condemnation of these great people.
Israel has many friends in Germany, more than in most European countries. Some of them support us blindly, some have justified guilt feelings and some are true, critical friends of Israel. There are, of course, anti-Semites in Germany and the demand that Germany never forget is also justified. But a situation in which any German who dares criticize Israel is instantly accused of anti-Semitism is intolerable.
Some years ago, after a critical article of mine was published in the German daily Die Welt, one of its editors told me: "No journalist of ours could write an article like that." I was never again invited to write for that paper. For years, any journalist who joined the huge German media outlet Axel Springer had to sign a pledge never to write anything that casts aspersions on Israel's right to exist. That is an unhealthy situation that ended with an eruption of exaggerated criticism like Grass'.
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