US to skip Japan’s WWII Nagasaki memorial after Israel’s exclusion

The United States will not send an ambassador to Nagasaki, Japan, for its World War II commemoration on Aug. 9 of the 1945 atomic bombing because Israel was not invited.

The city’s mayor, Shiro Suzuki, decided not to invite the nation because he wanted to “hold the ceremony peacefully, solemnly, and smoothly” and noted it wasn’t a political decision.

“The true meaning [for not inviting Israel] has not been conveyed,” Suzuki told reporters. “We want to hold the ceremony in a peaceful and solemn atmosphere.”

Britain will not attend the ceremony, either, as the mayor has not changed his course since receiving a July 25 letter from the ambassadors of six countries, the U.S., Britain, Germany, France, Italy, and Canada, as well as the European Union, expressing their concern about Israel not being invited.

U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel and other envoys said excluding Israel puts it on par with Russia and Belarus, which are the only two other countries not invited due to their military aggression against Ukraine.

Emanuel will instead attend a peace ceremony at the Zojoji Temple in Tokyo and hold a moment of silence at the embassy. He previously attended a similar ceremony in Hiroshima, the site of the other atomic bombing in World War II.

“He has directed the consulates to do the same,” an embassy spokesperson said in an email to NBC News.

British Ambassador to Japan Julia Longbottom is skipping the ceremony because not inviting Israel “creates an unfortunate and misleading equivalency with Russia and Belarus,” she said.

Israeli Ambassador to Japan Gilad Cohen said in a post on X last week that the decision to exclude Israel from the Nagasaki ceremony was “regrettable” and “sends a wrong message to the world, and deflects from the core message that Nagasaki has been promoting for years.”

At several events internationally and in the U.S., pro-Palestinian protesters have interrupted to call for a ceasefire in Gaza or to condemn Israel for its bombing campaign of the region.