U.S. Ambassador of Japan Rahm Emanuel visits Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan, Jan. 19, 2024. (Stars and Stripes)
TOKYO — The American and British ambassadors to Japan declined to attend Friday’s Nagasaki Peace Memorial Ceremony after event organizers refused to invite a representative from Israel.
U.S. Ambassador Rahm Emanuel “will honor and commemorate the day at an event in Tokyo, but he does not want to be involved in a politicized event,” U.S. Embassy Tokyo said in an unattributed statement emailed to Stars and Stripes on Wednesday.
Nagasaki holds an annual ceremony commemorating the atomic bombing of the city on Aug. 9, 1945, estimated to have killed 75,000.
This year, perceived sentiments over Israel’s invasion of Gaza has shaded the event.
Nagasaki decided not to invite Israel this year, not based on political considerations, but to ensure the safety of attendees and the smooth running of the ceremony, Mayor Shiro Suzuki told reporters July 31.
Suzuki said event organizers deferred a decision to invite the Israeli ambassador to Japan, Gilad Cohen, after considering “the various global developments regarding the current situation in the Middle East and out of concern for the risk of unforeseen circumstances occurring at the ceremony.”
Israeli Ambassador to Japan Gilad Cohen speaks with reporters at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo, Oct. 13, 2023. (Akifumi Ishikawa/Stars and Stripes)
Nine days before the ceremony, “our concerns about the risks remain unchanged, and it is a very difficult decision to make, but we have decided to withhold the issuance of an invitation to the Israeli ambassador,” Suzuki said.
U.S. Consulate Fukuoka Principal Officer Chuka Asike will attend the ceremony, according to a press release the embassy provided to Stars and Stripes on Thursday.
U.K. Ambassador to Japan Julia Longbottom, who attended an Aug. 6 ceremony commemorating the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, has also decided not to go to Nagasaki, according to British Embassy Tokyo.
“As Ambassador Longbottom explained at Hiroshima, she will not be attending this year’s peace ceremony in Nagasaki,” the embassy wrote in an unsigned statement Thursday. ”As she explained, the decision not to invite Israel to the Nagasaki memorial creates an unfortunate and misleading equivalency with Russia and Belarus — the only other countries not invited to this year’s ceremony.”
The United Kingdom recognizes the importance the commemorating and remembering the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and communicating a message of peace internationally, the statement said.
“The UK Government will of course still attend the Nagasaki memorial,” the statement said, without specifying who would go.
The Israel response to Oct. 7 attack from Gaza, a Palestinian territory, by Hamas militants divided opinions and sparked further conflict and worldwide protests.
Israel undertook an invasion of Gaza, a Palestinian territory, following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants who stormed out of Gaza and killed hundreds of Israelis and took scores more hostage. The Israeli invasion has so far killed approximately 39,000 people, according to Gaza health authorities.
The decision not to invite Israel to the Nagasaki event was based solely on the desire to commemorate victims of the atomic bomb in a peaceful and solemn atmosphere, the city’s mayor said.
For the same reason, Nagasaki has not invited Russia and Belarus for three years in a row, and not out of political consideration, an official from the city’s Atomic Bomb Measure Department told Stars and Stripes by phone Wednesday.
Some Japanese government officials may speak to the press only on condition of anonymity.
