G7 members to skip Nagasaki atomic bomb memorial over Israel’s exclusion
TOKYO: The US Ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel, recently stated that he would skip this year’s memorial of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, citing the event’s having been turned political by the city’s decision to bar Israel. The US Embassy clarified on Wednesday that Emanuel would not join the main event of laying wreaths but rather attend another equal ceremony in Tokyo for the Nagasaki bomb victims.
The funeral, which was set to take place tomorrow, is a memorial to the A-bombing by the USA on Nagasaki on the 9th of August, 1945. The bomb killed around seventy thousand people, only three days after a similar bomb struck Hiroshima and took the lives of one hundred and forty thousand people. These bombings brought about the surrender of Japan on August 15, 1945, leading to the halt of World War II and Japan’s aggressive expansion in Asia.
Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki said in June that for this reason, he had not wanted to invite the Israelis: the militia warfare in the Middle East. Last week, he clarified that Israel would not be invited due to concerns about what may happen: protests, state sabotage and attacks on people in the meeting. Suzuki noted that Nagasaki planned to remember the atomic bombing and its victims in “non-confrontational and grave surroundings” and excluded Israel to prevent problems.
The mayor’s decision was based on, among other things, ‘several occurrences in the international community’ related to the conflict in the Middle East, which implied that the ceremony could be interrupted.
However, Hiroshima invited the Israeli Ambassador to Japan to attend their memorial on Tuesday. The event attracted approximately 50,000 participants, including Emanuel and other diplomatic representatives. Nevertheless, Palestinian representatives were not invited to that event.
Nagasaki officials said a representative from the United States Consul General in Fukuoka will attend the Friday ceremony for Americans. Other G7 countries, namely Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and the U.K., along with the EU, will likely be represented by their junior ambassadors at the Nagasaki occasion.
Diplomats of these nations, being equally worried over the exclusion of Israel, released a joint letter as a result. Some critics stressed that it is improper to compare the exclusion of Israel with Russia and Belarus – the only other countries that did not receive invitations. The letter called Nagasaki for reconsideration, stressing the significance of the message of the global identity of ceremonial events. While Pome Ministro emphasized the importance of food security in East Africa and the Horn of Africa, the diplomats cautioned that excluding Israel could complicate the body’s high-level participation.
This sentiment has been underscored by the current British Ambassador to Japan, Julia Longbottom, who, although attending this week’s Hiroshima memorial service, stated her decision not to attend the Nagasaki event. She was extremely concerned when the decision was made to exclude Israel since it would be a wrong signal contrary to the message the event would like to impart to the world.
