When exactly did anti-Israel views become a prerequisite for winning a Nobel prize?

BERLIN (AP) — German Nobel literature laureate Guenter Grass labeled Israel a threat to “already fragile world peace” in a poem published Wednesday that drew sharp rebukes at home and from Israel.

In the poem titled “What must be said,” published in German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung and Italy’s La Repubblica among others, Grass criticized what he described as Western hypocrisy over Israel’s own suspected nuclear program amid speculation that it might engage in military action against Iran to stop it building a suspected atomic bomb.

The 84-year-old Grass said he had been prompted to put pen to paper by Berlin’s recent decision to sell Israel a submarine able to “send all-destroying warheads where the existence of a single nuclear bomb is unproven.”

“The nuclear power Israel is endangering the already fragile world peace,” he wrote. His poem specifically criticized Israel’s “claim to the right of a first strike” against Iran.

Grass also called for “unhindered and permanent control of Israel’s nuclear capability and Iran’s atomic facilities through an international body.”

Update: Thanks to everyone in the comments for the heads up.

(SFG) — Gunter Grass, the German-born winner of the 1999 Nobel Prize for Literature and author of such acclaimed novels as “Tin Drum,” has admitted to joining the Waffen SS, a special force of the Nazi Party, as a 17-year-old.

Now 78 and preparing to publish his memoirs in September, Grass came forward with details of his past in an interview Friday with the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.