The US and British ambassadors are skipping the 79th anniversary ceremony of the Nagasaki nuclear bombing because the Israeli ambassador was not invited by the city’s mayor, Shiro Suzuki, citing security concerns. The US ambassador, Rahm Emanuel, who is Jewish, questioned the reasoning behind the exclusion of the Israeli ambassador, pointing out that Israel’s envoy attended a similar ceremony in Hiroshima without incident.
Mayor Suzuki, who recently called for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict, has drawn parallels between the suffering in Gaza and the bombing of Nagasaki, which his parents experienced. Nagasaki has excluded Russia and Belarus from its invite list following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Emanuel and the British ambassador, Julia Longbottom, emphasized that equating Israel’s self-defense with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is unfair and misleading. Israel’s ambassador to Japan, Gilad Cohen, expressed disappointment at not being invited and defended Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorist attacks.
“Israel is exercising its full right and moral obligation to defend itself and its citizens and will continue to do so,” Cohen stated on social media, rejecting any comparisons that distort the reality of the situation.