Gunter Grass Hails Israeli Nuclear Whistleblower In New Poem

[Purveyor]

By Agence France-Presse
Sunday, September 30, 2012 16:22 EDT

Nobel prize-winning German author Gunter Grass, declared persona non-grata by Israel over a poem saying it threatened world peace, has published another work critical of the Jewish state.

In one of a collection of 87 new pieces, Grass hails whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu, who served 18 years in jail for leaking Israeli nuclear secrets to a British newspaper, in a poem entitled “A Hero in Our Time”.

He describes former nuclear technician Vanunu as a “hero” and a “role model”, according to extracts published by the German news agency DPA.

Earlier this year, Grass, 84, angered Israel after publishing a piece entitled “What Must Be Said”, in which he voiced fears that a nuclear-armed Israel “could wipe out the Iranian people” with a “first strike.”

MORE...

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/09/30/gunter-grass-hails-israeli-nuclear-whistleblower-in-new-poem/

[Comrade Grumpy]

1. Israel's hypocrisy: Nuclear bombs for us, but not for you.

It is ironic that nuclear armed Israel--what is it, 100 nukes? 200?--pretends to be so frightened that the Iranians might eventually get one or two.

[KitSileya]

2. Mordechai Vanunu is a hero.

Grass is right, and it doesn't matter whether you think he overstepped with his previous poem. Vanunu dared to tell the world that the emperor was naked, and got 18 years in mostly solitary confinement for his whistleblowing, and he's still imprisoned in Israel, even if he isn't kept in a recognizable jail building.

If the world is to have any credibility when it comes to policing Iran's mutterings about the bomb, we have to recognize that Israel stepped over that boundary first - even if it hasn't signed the non-proliferation treaty, and Iran did (while being ruled by an American-installed dictator, mind you.)