Ik weet niet precies hoe het debat in Duitsland verloopt en zaken liggen daar zeker gevoeliger dan hier, maar de laatste tijd is daar ook steeds meer kritiek op Israel te horen, vooral van linkse politici. Het taboe dat Grass zegt te doorbreken was dus ook daar al eerder doorbroken, al kun je in Dutisland op nog wat fellere kritiek rekenen dan hier wanneer je idiote vergelijkingen maakt en je totaal ongevoelig toont voor terechte en begrijpelijke angsten van Israel over de aard en bedoelingen van haar vijanden.
A military strike would prompt another competition in Germany between the two principles of "Never again war" and "Never again Auschwitz", like the one that took place during the Kosovo war in 1999. At that time, Germans seemed to choose "Never again Auschwitz". But my instinct is that, a decade later, they would choose "Never again war".
Ondanks alle speculaties over een Israelische aanval op Iran zie ik het nog niet gebeuren, maar mocht het gebeuren dan is dat niet omdat Israel even wat nieuw wapenspul wil testen of omdat Netanjahoe aan een vervolgingscomplex lijdt. Daarvoor zijn de risico's toch echt te groot, nog los van de felle internationale kritiek en gevolgen. Hopelijk kiezen niet alleen de Duitsers, maar ook andere Europeanen in dat geval voor 'nooit meer Auschwitz', ook als daar zo'n aanval voor nodig is.
RP
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Günter Grass and changing German attitudes towards Israel
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/05/gunter-grass-german-anger-at-israel
The poet hopes his latest work, What Must Be Said, will prompt others to break their silence on Israel's nuclear weapons
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 5 April 2012 15.02 BST
The anti-war poem published by Günter Grass is a subtle but straightforward example of a tendency in Germany that the historian Dan Diner has called "exonerating projection": the relativisation of the Holocaust through the implicit equation of Israel with Nazi Germany. In the poem, What Must Be Said, the 84 year-old Nobel prize-winner who was a member of the Waffen SS as a teenager imagines himself as a "survivor" of an Israeli nuclear strike on Iran.
What must be said, according to Grass, is that "the nuclear power Israel" – rather than Iran – "endangers an already fragile world peace". Grass says he had not spoken out previously because his nationality "forbade" it: any German breaking the silence on the Israel nuclear programme may be accused of antisemitism.
But, Grass goes on, the recent agreement to sell a sixth German Dolphin submarine to Israel meant Germany would now be partly responsible for "a crime that can be foreseen". It could not therefore make "any of the usual excuses" – presumably a reference to excuses made by Germans about the Holocaust. Grass thus felt he must break his silence "with my last drop of ink" – suggesting that this is the writer's last word. He says he hopes the poem will prompt others to "liberate themselves from silence" about Israel's nuclear weapons.
The publication of the poem in the Süddeutsche Zeitung and other European newspapers has already prompted furious reactions in Germany and Israel. Josef Joffe writes in Die Zeit that Grass's poem was more about self-exoneration than about submarines. In an interview with Der Spiegel, the Israeli historian Tom Segev says that the poem seems to be more about Grass's long silence about his own Nazi past than about German silence about Israel's nuclear programme.
However, what makes the publication of the poem significant is that it expresses a sense of anger against Israel that – justified or not – many Germans seem increasingly to share. This anger is partly a response to Israel's rightward shift during the past decade. But it seems also to be a product of developments in Germany and in particular the way that the Holocaust has receded in significance during the last decade. Increasingly, Germans seem to see themselves as victims rather than perpetrators.
A poll in January 2009 – during the Gaza war – suggested that German attitudes to Israel were in flux. Nearly half of respondents said they saw Israel as an "aggressive country" and only around a third of respondents said they felt Germany had a special responsibility towards Israel. Sixty per cent said Germany had no special responsibility (the figure was even higher among younger Germans and among those living in the former East Germany).
This anger against Israel is exacerbated by the sense some Germans have of not being able to say what they really think – as Grass suggests in the poem. This has created a pent-up resentment towards Israel that could at some point explode. It will be interesting to see whether Grass's poem leads in the next few weeks and months to the debate about Germany's "special relationship" with Israel that he seems to hope it would.
Angela Merkel – who has declined to comment on Grass's poem – is personally committed to the Jewish state but is under increasing pressure on this issue, on which she is unusually out of step with German public opinion.
Last year, Germany voted in favour of a UN resolution demanding a halt to Israeli settlement expansion – an unusual break with Israel. Later in the year, Germany opposed the Palestinian statehood bid at the UN. But according to one poll, 84% of Germans supported Palestinian statehood and 76% believed Germany should act to recognise it – an even higher proportion in each case than in France or the UK.
An Israeli military strike on Iran could create a sudden rupture between Germany and Israel in the way that the Iraq war did between Germany and the US. My sense is that were Israel to launch a military strike on Iran, what remaining sympathy there is in Germany for Israel would evaporate almost overnight.
A military strike would prompt another competition in Germany between the two principles of "Never again war" and "Never again Auschwitz", like the one that took place during the Kosovo war in 1999. At that time, Germans seemed to choose "Never again Auschwitz". But my instinct is that, a decade later, they would choose "Never again war".
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