U.S. Ambassador to Skip Peace Ceremony in Japan Over Israel’s Omission

The U.S. and British ambassadors to Japan said on Wednesday they would not attend Nagasaki’s annual peace memorial ceremony this week, which marks the day the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city, because Israel had not been invited.

Among the invitees to the ceremony on Aug. 9, the 79th anniversary of the atomic bomb attack that laid waste to the city, were dignitaries from more than 150 countries and territories. Since 2022, Russia and Belarus have been left off the list because of their invasion of Ukraine.

This year, Israel was omitted as well. The American and British ambassadors said the Nagasaki mayor’s decision not to invite Israel wrongly equated the country’s war against Hamas in Gaza with Russia and Belarus’s actions.

“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s self-defense is not morally equivalent,” Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, said in an emailed statement.

Nagasaki’s mayor, Shiro Suzuki, announced his decision last week, saying it was out of concern over security risks and potential disruption.

The move was “not based on political judgment but an intention to conduct the ceremony to console the atomic bomb victims in a peaceful and solemn manner,” Mr. Suzuki said in a news conference.