What Must Be Said by Gunter Grass

dirtychinchilla

dirtychinchilla

dirtychinchilla

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I'm glad someone has, again, spoken out against Israel. Unfortunately for Gunter Grass, the fact that he's German and was briefly in the SS (despite being unsupportive of Hitler) clouds everyone's view on him.

When will the rest of the world wake up and see that Israel is just trying to stir up trouble?!

The original article can be found here.

This is Gunter Grass's poem on Israel's blatantly unethical and unjustified attack on Iran.

(I apologise for the lack of umlauts)

But why have I kept silent till now?

Because I thought my own origins,

Tarnished by a stain that can never be removed,

meant I could not expect Israel, a land

to which I am, and always will be, attached,

to accept this open declaration of the truth.

Why only now, grown old,

and with what ink remains, do I say:

Israel's atomic power endangers

an already fragile world peace?

Because what must be said

may be too late tomorrow;

and because – burdened enough as Germans –

we may be providing material for a crime

that is foreseeable, so that our complicity

wil not be expunged by any

of the usual excuses.

And granted: I've broken my silence

because I'm sick of the West's hypocrisy;

and I hope too that many may be freed

from their silence, may demand

that those responsible for the open danger we face renounce the use of force,

may insist that the governments of

both Iran and Israel allow an international authority

free and open inspection of

the nuclear potential and capability of both.
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"For six decades, Mr Grass hid the fact that he had been a member of the Waffen SS.

"So for him to cast the one and only Jewish state as the greatest threat to world peace and to oppose giving Israel the means to defend itself is perhaps not surprising."
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:rolleyes:

/thread.
 
He was briefly a member of the SS, yes. It's unfair to discredit him based on this alone; is his point of view not still valid?

The point he's trying to make, though, is that Israel are disrupting the fragile peace that exists in the Middle East, being the only country to have nuclear weaponry. They are a huge threat to world peace!
 
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dirtychinchilla said:
He was briefly a member of the SS, yes. It's unfair to discredit him based on this alone; is his point of view not still valid?

The point he's trying to make, though, is that Israel are disrupting the fragile peace that exists in the Middle East, being the only country to have nuclear weaponry. They are a huge threat to world peace!
Click to expand...

It depends on how he rationalises his opinion that Israel is the biggest threat to world security......
 
I believe, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that if Israel attack Iran, due to the saturation of Jews and Israelis in the American government and the power that they hold, America will follow them into war with Iran. If this is the case Russia, as well as China (I think this may be incorrect, but I'm unsure), will back Iran and other powerful nations, including the UK will be forced to take sides, possibly leading to WW3. This is why he is concerned, and this is why I am concerned.

This is all without getting into potential religious reasons why a Jewish state might attack a Muslim one, but I don't really know enough about that to form a real opinion.

I think the only solution is worldwide nuclear disarmament, if possible; no group of people should hold such a great threat of death and destruction over any other group. Frankly, I think the fact that we have nuclear weapons is disgraceful, disgusting, and upsetting.
 
Nutella33 said:
he might also be surprised to learn we are not at world peace, although i do feel for the poor burden the germans have to carry....

:rolleyes:
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The point he was making is that Germans (this excludes him) who were not alive during WW2 and therefore had no influence, are still judged as being anti-semitic, or at least fear to express their opinins on Israel because they don't want to be accused of being Nazis, based on the country that they were born in.
 
Gorge Galloway gives a good summary of what will happen when Iran is attacked. Apparently Israel has agreed with the US to delay attacking Iran until around this time next year. That way the US can get the election out of the way first. In return for delaying the attack the US has promised to give Israel some new toys like cluster bombs and refuelling planes.


We are going to attack Iran it is just a case of when we do it.
 
I'm fairly sure that
A: Israel already has Clusterbombs (they IIRC have quite a good arms industry* themselves, and Clusterbombs are not hard to make).
B: Have refuelling aircraft - and it's not impossible to convert existing commercial aircraft to the refuelling roles (indeed from memory most refueling aircraft are based off other designs).
And
C: Galloway is pretty much an odious toad who will do or say virtually anything to defend his friends (or anyone who dislikes the americans).


*They've had to make/repair/redesign weapon systems from handguns to tanks and aircraft for decades because for a while no one would sell them anything openly, and they had to have a reliable supply (and the only way to do that, was to make them themselves).
 
ennogs said:
Gorge Galloway gives a good summary of what will happen when Iran is attacked. Apparently Israel has agreed with the US to delay attacking Iran until around this time next year. That way the US can get the election out of the way first. In return for delaying the attack the US has promised to give Israel some new toys like cluster bombs and refuelling planes.


That's a great video, he makes some superb and very valid points. If we bomb Iran, the fallout on our part could be much more severe than that of Iran. I don't think it will come to this, fortunately, unless Netanyahu gets his way.

We are going to attack Iran it is just a case of when we do it.
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simulatorman said:
Ends with Dog... :p
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I am not this dirtdog you speak of!

Jono8 said:
I find it quite comforting.
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How is it comforting? Nuclear weapons are appalling!
 
Perhaps, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are needed now. More importantly, I don't think the general public, who are generally innocent, should be subjected to the threat of complete elimination based on political justifications.
 
dirtychinchilla said:
Perhaps, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are needed now. More importantly, I don't think the general public, who are generally innocent, should be subjected to the threat of complete elimination based on political justifications.
Click to expand...

I would find another planet to live on then! :p
 
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