German writer Grass accused over 'anti-Israel' poem

Israel’s prime minister has lashed out at German poet Guenter Grass for calling Israel a threat to world peace.

Grass, a Nobel prizewinner, published a poem in a German newspaper on Wednesday in which he questioned how Israel could call for ending Iran’s nuclear programme while holding what is widely believed to be its own nuclear arsenal.

Grass, 84, who shocked Germany in 2006 with the revelation that he was a member of the Waffen SS as a teenager, is best known for his 1959 novel 'The Tin Drum'.

Premier Benjamin Netanyahu said today that Grass’s “shameful moral equivalence between Israel and Iran, a regime that denies the Holocaust and threatens to annihilate Israel, says little about Israel and much about Mr Grass”.

Tehran claims its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes but Israel and the West believe it is pursuing atomic weapons.

Israel has threatened military action if international sanctions and diplomacy fail to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions.