Antinuclear

US, UK (and Australia) boycott Japan nuclear bomb memorial after Israel snubbed

The Mayor of Nagasaki said that there was a possibility of protests against the Israeli presence over it’s war on Gaza.

The New Arab Staff & Agencies, 07 August, 2024

Ambassadors from Western countries – including the US and UK – will skip a ceremony marking the 79th anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki after Israel was snubbed, officials said Wednesday.

Nagasaki’s mayor said last week that Israel’s ambassador Gilad Cohen was not invited to Friday’s event in the southern Japanese city because of the risk of possible protests over the Gaza conflict.

The US and UK embassies said on Wednesday their ambassadors would not take part as a result and that their countries would be represented by lower-ranking diplomats.

Media reports said Australia, Italy, Canada, and the EU, who together with the US, UK, and Germany signed a strongly worded joint letter to Nagasaki’s mayor last month, would follow suit.

US ambassador Rahm Emanuel will not attend “after the mayor of Nagasaki politicised the event by not inviting the Israeli ambassador”, an embassy spokesperson told AFP.

nstead, Emanuel, 64, who was ex-president Barack Obama’s chief of staff, will go to a separate event at a temple in Tokyo, the spokesperson said.

Emanuel is fiercely pro-Israel, with his father being a former member of the Irgun, a Jewish paramilitary group that targeted British soldiers and Palestinian civilians in mandatory Palestine. 

The British embassy said Ambassador Julia Longbottom would also not be in Nagasaki, adding 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”.

A spokesperson for the French embassy said its number two would attend, telling AFP that the “decision not to invite the representative of Israel is regrettable and questionable”.

The European Union’s ambassador would not take part “due to his agenda” and the bloc would be represented by a lower-level diplomat, a spokesperson told AFP.

The German embassy told AFP that the head of its political division would attend, with the decision made “in light of the absences and availability” of senior embassy staff………………………………………………………………………………….https://www.newarab.com/news/us-uk-boycott-japan-nuclear-bomb-memorial-after-israel-snubbed

August 9, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized