The United States and United Kingdom have decided not to participate in a ceremony marking the 79th anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki after Israel was not invited to the event. Mayor Suzuki Shiro said in June that the southern Japanese city would not invite Israel and recently said that Israel’s ambassador Gilad Cohen was not invited because of the risks of protests over the Gaza conflict.
The U.S. and British embassies in Tokyo announced that their ambassadors would not attend the event—Rahm Emanuel for the U.S. and Julia Longbottom for the U.K. Instead, lower-ranking diplomats will attend.
Emanuel will participate in a smaller ceremony in Tokyo. Israel’s Cohen participated in a ceremony held in the city of Hiroshima.
Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy and the European Union sent a strongly worded letter to Nagasaki’s mayor in July criticizing the decision to not invite Israel.
A spokesperson for the French embassy told AFP that it will send its No. 2 diplomat, saying that the “decision not to invite the representative of Israel is regrettable and questionable.”
According to Japanese public broadcaster NHK, the envoys said in the letter that not inviting Israel “would result in placing Israel on the same level with countries such as Russia and Belarus, who are the only other countries not invited to this ceremony.” The letter then went on to say, “Such an eventuality would be unfortunate and misleading.”
It concluded by saying that if Israel were excluded, “it would become difficult for us to have high-level participation in this event.”
The Nagasaki Municipality did invite the PLO representative in Tokyo.
