The Nagasaki municipality has not invited Israeli Ambassador Gilad Cohen to attend the ceremony to commemorate the atomic bombing carried out by the United States on the Japanese city on August 9, 1945, sparking an indignant reaction from the USA, the United Kingdom, France, the European Union and even Italy.
On August 9, 79 years ago, Washington dropped “Fat Man,” an atomic bomb, on Nagasaki, killing approximately 74,000 people, including many who survived the explosion but later died from radiation from the plutonium device. All this three days after dropping the first nuclear bomb in history on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing approximately 140,000 people. A week later, on August 15, 1945, Japan announced its surrender, thus ending World War II.
Every year, the two Japanese cities organize a commemoration of the two atomic bombings, the first and only in history, to which diplomats and representatives of foreign countries are also invited. Since 2022, the ambassadors of Russia and Belarus have been excluded from the celebrations due to the invasion of Ukraine decided by Moscow and supported by Minsk.
However, the mayor of Nagasaki, Shiro Suzuki, has said that Israel’s failure to invite was not due to political reasons but only security. However, at the ceremony held on August 6 in Hiroshima, the Israeli ambassador, Gilad Cohen, participated without any problems. Thus, the initial controversy caused a small diplomatic incident.
The West’s reaction
The United States, the United Kingdom, France, the European Union and even Italy (and perhaps Canada and Australia will join them) will not send their ambassadors to Japan to the commemoration ceremony in Nagasaki, which will instead be attended by lower-ranking diplomatic officials.
However, only the US and British embassies have officially linked the decision to the Japanese municipality’s failure to invite Israeli Ambassador Gilad Cohen.
The UK embassy said the exclusion of the Jewish state created “an unfortunate and misleading equivalence with Russia and Belarus, the only other countries not invited to this year’s ceremony”.
A spokesperson for the French embassy called the municipality’s decision “deplorable and questionable,” while the German diplomatic mission criticized the choice to “put Israel on the same level as Russia and Belarus.”
Ambassador Gilad Cohen, who attended a similar ceremony in Hiroshima on Tuesday without incident, called Nagasaki’s decision “sends the wrong message to the world.”
A diplomatic source from our country admitted to the press agency AFP that Italy’s reaction was also a direct consequence of the choice of the Japanese municipal administration, which despite the protests confirmed the decision, explaining it with security reasons.
Mayor Suzuki’s response
The city’s mayor, Shiro Suzuki, reiterated today that Israel’s failure to invite him was not motivated by political reasons but by security concerns: local authorities fear that the presence of the Jewish state’s ambassador could spark protests against Tel Aviv’s war in the Gaza Strip, which has cost the lives of nearly 40,000 people in over ten months of conflict.
Suzuki called the choice of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, the European Union and Italy “deplorable.” “It’s unfortunate that they told us that their ambassadors will not be able to participate,” the mayor said at a press conference today, as reported by the Japanese agency Kyodo. “We have taken this decision not for political reasons. We want to conduct a smooth ceremony in a peaceful and solemn environment.”
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