US, UK Ambassadors to Skip Nagasaki Atomic Bombing Memorial as Israel Snubbed of Invite

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta -  Several Western ambassadors, including the United States Ambassador for Japan Rahm Emanuel and the United Kingdom’s Julia Longbottom, will skip a ceremony marking the 79th anniversary of the Nagasaki atomic bombing after Israel was snubbed of invitation to the memorial, according to Kyodo and Channel News Asia on Wednesday, August 7, 2024, citing close sources.

The two decided to skip the ceremony as a response after Israel’s Ambassador Gilad Cohen was not invited amid the ongoing conflict in the Gaza Strip, the sources said. 

US ambassador Rahm Emanuel will not attend "after the mayor of Nagasaki politicized the event by not inviting the Israeli ambassador", an embassy spokesperson said.

Instead, Emanuel, 64, who was former president Barack Obama's chief of staff, will go to a separate event at a temple in Tokyo, the spokesperson said.

The British embassy also said that Ambassador Julia Longbottom would also not be in Nagasaki, saying that not inviting Israel "creates an unfortunate and misleading equivalency with Russia and Belarus - the only other countries not invited to this year's ceremony".

Nagasaki mayor Shiro Suzuki had said last week that the city refrained from inviting Cohen over fears of protest against the Gaza conflict. Suzuki said the decision not to invite Cohen was "not politically motivated" but based on a desire to "hold the ceremony in a peaceful and somber atmosphere".

In June, Suzuki said Nagasaki had sent a letter to the Israeli embassy calling for an "immediate ceasefire" in Gaza.

Media reports said that Australia, Italy, Canada and the European Union, who together with the US, Britain and Germany signed a strongly worded joint letter to Nagasaki's mayor last month, would follow suit.

In their letter to Suzuki, the six Western envoys had warned that if Israel was excluded "it would become difficult for us to have high-level participation at this event".

Cohen, who was invited to and attended a memorial ceremony on Tuesday in Hiroshima, last week had said the Nagasaki decision "sends a wrong message to the world".

"As a close friend and like-minded nation of Japan, Israel has attended this ceremony for many years to honor the victims and their families," he wrote on social media platform X.

On Monday, Cohen told US broadcaster CNN that the security concerns were "invented" and that he was "really surprised by (Suzuki) hijacking this ceremony for his political motivations.”

Government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi on Wednesday declined to comment, saying invitations were "a decision for the organizer, Nagasaki City".

A Nagasaki official in charge of the ceremony said it was "obviously better to have high-level individuals, like ambassadors themselves, taking part".

KYODO | CNA

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