Israel/Palestine
In reply to the discussion: Gunter Grass and the mute left [View all]Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I never uncritically defended the poem. I said(and stand by it)that Grass isn't a Nazi and that the poem wasn't antisemitic(criticism of Israeli government policy is NOT automatically antisemitism).
In my view(and, probably, Grass saw it too in stepping away from at least some of the poem)Grass realized that he'd gone too far in saying that missile strikes on Tehran would wipe out the population of Iran. That it would have been enough to say that it would kill too many innocent people to be acceptable.
Saying that is not antisemitic, since the problem with the missile strikes is NOT the nature of the country that would be launching them...the problem is the missile strikes themselves, which would have to be deadly and can no longer be assumed to be pinpoint.
Can we just end this here, now? I shouldn't have to keep facing interrogation by you. I'm not evil and I don't support anything or anyone that is.