U.S. ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel is reportedly skipping an annual memorial ceremony for the U.S.’s atomic bombing of Nagasaki after organizers of the event decided to exclude the Israeli ambassador from the event due to pressure from activist groups.
The U.S. embassy said that Emanuel would not attend the event because he did not want to “be involved in a politicized event,” bizarrely implying that the event would not be politicized if Israel had a presence at the peace ceremony. Emanuel, a longtime supporter of Israel, will reportedly attend a different ceremony in Tokyo.
Advocates for Palestinian rights noted that the U.S.’s decision to pull out of the event is not only a failure to recognize the U.S.’s own role in the attack that killed, by some estimates, over 70,000 civilians in Nagasaki; it is also a show of how far U.S. foreign policy officials will go to capitulate to Israel while it is actively committing one of the worst atrocities of the 21st century so far.
The August 9 ceremony will commemorate the 79th anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki; Hiroshima, where 140,000 were killed, held its ceremony on August 6 and did invite Israel.
Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki, a descendant of survivors of the bomb, announced his decision not to invite Israeli representatives this week. Suzuki, who has previously called for a ceasefire in Gaza, hinted at this decision in June over concerns that potential protests at the ceremony may interrupt the “peaceful and solemn atmosphere” meant to honor the victims.
The Israeli ambassador to Japan, Gilad Cohen, accused Suzuki of “hijacking this ceremony for his political motivations.”
The U.K. ambassador to Japan is also skipping the Nagasaki event because of Israel’s omission. The U.K. and U.S. sent a letter last month saying that “it would become difficult for us to have high-level participation in this event” if Israel wasn’t invited. Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the European Union also signed the letter.
This highlights a double standard in Western countries’ attitude toward violence and occupation; the exclusion of Russia and Belarus from the event for the past two years due to the invasion of Ukraine has not caused similar boycotts.
The British embassy said in a statement that excluding Israel “creates an unfortunate and misleading equivalency with Russia and Belarus — the only other countries not invited to this year’s ceremony.” Israel’s ambassador also protested the idea that Israel’s assault on Gaza — and escalating violence in the occupied West Bank — is comparable to Russia’s invasion.
Experts have indeed said that the Gaza genocide isn’t equivalent to other conflicts — because humanitarian workers and historians have noted that Israel has created the worst humanitarian crisis ever seen in modern times.
Notably, Israel has released, at minimum, firepower equivalent to five atomic bombs – of the caliber the U.S. dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima – on Gaza since October 2023. As of April, Israel’s military had dropped 75,000 metric tonnes of explosives on the Gaza Strip, an area less than half the size of Hiroshima, while the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima was estimated at roughly 15,000 tonnes.
Other sources have noted that the number of bombs dropped by Israel has surpassed the firepower of the bombs dropped in Dresden, Hamburg and London combined during World War II.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We’re presently working to find 1500 new monthly donors to Truthout before the end of the year.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy