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.
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.
[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.