Nobel-winning writer Guenter Grass banned from visiting Israel

PanARMENIAN.Net - Israel has banned German intellectual Guenter Grass from visiting the country because of a critical poem published by the Nobel laureate last week, The Associated Press reported.

In his order, Interior Minister Eli Yishai used an Israeli law that allows him to bar entry to ex-Nazis. Grass, 84, admitted in 2006 that he served in the paramilitary Waffen-SS in the final months of World War II.

Yishai said Sunday, April 8, "If Guenter wants to continue to spread his twisted and lying works, I suggest he does this from Iran, where he can find a supportive audience."

Grass published a poem called "What Must Be Said" last Wednesday in which he claimed a nuclear Israel was a threat to world peace and called for supervision of both Israel and Iran's nuclear facilities.