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Comment by littletimmy | Hacker News Reader

His poem "What Must Be Said" is a wonderful commentary on Israel and the threat it poses to world peace. He talks about how the West has turned a blind eye to Israel's development of nuclear weapons because of its collective guilt. He argues that this must stop.

Here it is (translated): https://kugelmass.wordpress.com/2012/04/10/a-legitimate-tran...

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Since this is a hacker crowd where data should count for something, consider that the entire Arab-Israeli conflict since 1948 so far caused less than half as many deaths as the current Syrian civil war, let alone the Iran-Iraq War or the Iraq invasion.

So, claiming this nation of 7 million that is smaller in size than Lake Michigan to be "posing a threat to world peace" is pathetic, and frankly says much more about Grass than Israel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_conflict

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Civil_War

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War

How about we rephrase your sentence a little:

So, claiming this group [Al-Qaeda] of several thousand that is smaller in size than a football stadium to be "posing a threat to world peace" is pathetic, and frankly says much more about the US military than al-Qaeda.

Still agree with me? Size has absolutely no relation whatsoever on the ability to threaten something, particularly when said party has nuclear weapons.

Of course I agree. Al Qaeda doesn't have the capacity to really threaten world peace except by provoking a shortsighted response, which they did.

But the comparison is meaningless anyway. AQ is not a nation, it's an organization with a certain ideology. It's not comparable to a country, like Israel, which is a collection of various ideologies and worldviews.

While I agree with you, I think what is claimed it that Israel and AQ are unique in their potential for destruction ("threaten world peace") not necessarily their previous actions in that regard.

If that is the case, comparing their body count is almost meaningless.

That's ridiculous. In what way is it unique? Nukes are more likely to be used in a Pakistan-Indian conflict and now that the cold war is over there's no chance of a regional war spiralling into WWIII.

The deaths due to the Arab-Israeli conflict have nothing to do with the potential consequences of Israel's nuclear weapons. Likewise, the small population and small landmass doesn't reduce the threat. If anything, it increases the threat, because Israel has a much smaller capability to withstand conventional war than any other nuclear-armed country.

Consider that Israel's stockpile, while unknown, is estimated to be larger than Pakistan's and India's combined, and that it is surrounded by enemies rather than merely being bordered by some as is India and Pakistan. Those two are a major threat to world stability and a likely source of a near to medium term nuclear war. We're really lucky that Israel's enemies have not managed to get their shit together since 1973 on the wiping-out-the-Jews front, because if they did or do, it could easily turn into a seriously devastating conflict.

> the threat it poses to world peace

Some poeple are living in an alternative reality. Wars have been and are taking place all over the place without Israel's involvement. World peace doesn't exist, so the idea that Israel would threaten it is maniac.

He may have a point but I can think of less controversial figures than Grass to make it.

The poem conveniently omits an important point - that Israel has never called for Iran's destruction whereas Iran has repeatedly called to "wipe Israel off the map." Anyone who equates Israel and Iran on this issue is either ignorant or biased, possibly both.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/10/26/ahmadinejad/ http://video.foxnews.com/v/3704646723001/irans-supreme-leade...

Yup, of course this is no coincidence. The "poem" is straight-out antisemitic. Old habits die hard, after all Grass had an SS history (that he forgot to mention over decades).

[Edit] It's kind of obvious, but I'll say it since this is often missed by those applauding Grass for his late poem: If Israel wanted to destroy Iran, it had already done so, given its nuclear power. Instead, Israel has (so far successfully) used that nuclear power defensively to keep its neighbor countries from trying to destroy it.

That is just profoundly wrong. In the 80s he stated that a country which was responsible for something like the Holocaust did not deserve to be re-unificated. It seemed that he had his fair share of issues with his past, that is we he himself decided to come out with it.

What exactly is wrong? Sure, he decided to come out with the truth about his past, but it was kind of late. I'm not sure I see the connection between my post and your reply.

Either what he is saying is right, or it is wrong.

If it is right, he could eat babies for lunch and it would be right.

If he is wrong, he could be the creator of the universe and all within it and still be wrong.

Please stop with this ad-hominem nonsense.

Let me translate what I said / meant, then: What Grass was saying is wrong, and by the way it didn't surprise me given his shady history.

Hindsight is 20/20. Grass likely joined the SS as he'd been drafted to do labor (and IIRC the Nazis weren't nice to those who tried to draft-dodge). He didn't fire a shot, committed no atrocities, and went on to criticize Nazi and bourgeois culture. Dismissing the poem as antisemitic without explaining how it's antisemitic is just a lazy, cheap shot.

He joined the Waffen-SS in 1944 at the age of 17. The Waffen-SS was totally not the same as the SS.

Ahmadinejad never said that, though ironically it was an Iranian news agency that mistranslated him.

He was talking about three previous regimes that had fallen: the Shah of Iran, the Soviet Union and Saddam Hussein, saying that they had "vanished from the page of time", he expressed the hope that the regime that "occupies Jerusalem" would likewise "vanish from the page of time", at no point did he say that Iran would "wipe Israel off the map" The actual speech is relatively innocuous so the warhawks had to spin hard to make it into a direct threat.

Now, Khamenei has apparently threatened Israel directly (via Twitter back in November) but he has also issued fatwas against the use and production of nuclear weapons calling them a crime against humanity and Allah. Consistency, much? The difficulty in judging these comments is telling what are threats and what is theatre.

BTW, Vice-Premier Shimon Peres did threaten Iran just after the Ahmadinejad brouhaha:

"The president of Iran should remember that Iran can also be wiped off the map." -- The Jerusalem Post (2006-05-09).

Taking stupid comments like those as direct threats is how pointless, tragic wars get started.

Meanwhile, it's perfectly OK for Netanyahu to keep threatening to bomb Iran: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/02/brief-history-...

It's perfectly OK for the US/Israel to attack Iran's industrial infrastructure with a virus: http://www.wired.com/2014/11/countdown-to-zero-day-stuxnet/ (an act that Obama said would be an "act of war" if done to the US)

It's perfectly OK for Israel to kill Iranian nuclear scientists: http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/US-pressuring-Is...

And it's perfectly OK for people like John McCain (who came this >< close to becoming POTUS) to sing about bombing Iran: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-zoPgv_nYg

But hey, Ahmedinajad says one sentence that's dubiously translated, and that's not OK.

Former Nazi criticizes the Jewish state. Shocker.

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