US, British ambassadors skip Nagasaki ceremony after Israeli envoy’s presence is nixed

The ambassadors to Japan from the United States and Britain are snubbing a ceremony commemorating the 79th anniversary of the United States dropping a nuclear bomb on Nagasaki because the mayor of the city declined to invite the Israeli ambassador.

The mayor, Shiro Suzuki, said that the presence of the Israeli ambassador at the ceremony on Friday would have posed security risks, The New York Times reported.

The U.S. ambassador, Rahm Emanuel, who is Jewish and who has Israeli parents, told the newspaper that the explanation seemed disingenuous, noting that Israel’s envoy was present, without incident, on Tuesday at a similar ceremony at Hiroshima.

Suzuki recently called for an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, which Israel rejects without a deal to release hostages held by Hamas. The mayor has likened the suffering in Gaza to the bombing of his city, which his parents endured.

Nagasaki has kept Russia and Belarus off its invite list since Russia invaded Ukraine. Emanuel and the British ambassador, Julia Longbottom, both said in statements to the Times that placing Israel and Russia on the same plane was unfair, because Hamas launched the current war with an invasion, just as Russia had with Ukraine.

“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s self-defense is not morally equivalent,” Emanuel said. Keeping Israel off the list “creates an unfortunate and misleading equivalency,” said Longbottom.

Gilad Cohen, Israel’s ambassador to Japan, decried not being invited as “regrettable.”

“Israel is exercising its full right and moral obligation to defend itself and its citizens and will continue to do so,” Cohen said in a statement he posted on social media. “There is no comparison between Israel, which is being brutally attacked by terrorist organizations and any other conflict, any attempt to present it otherwise distorts the reality.”