Nagasaki defends decision not to invite Israel to atomic bomb memorial

The United States, United Kingom and other countries say they will send lower-level officials to ceremony that will take place on Friday.

The mayor of Nagasaki has defended his decision not to invite Israel to Friday’s memorial for those killed in 1945’s atomic bombing after ambassadors from countries including the United States and the United Kingdom said they would no longer attend the event.

“It is unfortunate that they have communicated to us that their ambassadors are not able to attend,” Shiro Suzuki told reporters on Thursday.

Suzuki said Israel had not been invited to avoid possible protests over Israel’s war on Gaza war.

“We made a comprehensive decision not for political reasons. We want to conduct a smooth ceremony in a peaceful and solemn environment.”

On August 9, 1945, the US dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing 74,000 people including many who survived the explosion but died later from radiation exposure.

The attack came three days after the US dropped the world’s first nuclear bomb on Hiroshima killing 140,000 people and devastating the city.

Japan announced its surrender on August 15, 1945, ending World War II and the country’s nearly half-century of aggression in Asia.

The US embassy announced on Wednesday that Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel would skip the Nagasaki memorial because Israel’s exclusion had “politicized” the event.

Nagasaki officials said they were told that an official of the US consulate in Fukuoka will represent the US at Friday’s ceremony. Five other Group of Seven nations — Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the UK — as well as the European Union, are also expected to send lower-ranking envoys to Nagasaki.

Envoys from those nations signed a joint letter expressing their shared concern about Israel’s exclusion, saying treating the country on the same level as Russia and Belarus — the only other countries not invited — would be misleading.

The envoys urged Nagasaki to reverse the decision and invite Israel to preserve the universal message of the city’s ceremony. The exclusion of Israel would make their “high-level participation” difficult, they said.

The British embassy said leaving out Israel created “an unfortunate and misleading equivalency with Russia and Belarus — the only other countries not invited to this year’s ceremony”.

Hiroshima invited the Israeli ambassador to Japan to its memorial ceremony, which took place on Tuesday.

At least 39,677 people have been killed since Israel went to war in Gaza after Hamas, the group that controls the territory, launched a surprise attack on Israel that killed more than 1,000 people.

Thousands have been killed and millions forced to flee since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Belarus is Moscow’s closest ally.