The mayor of Nagasaki on Wednesday said Israel will not be invited to its annual peace ceremony in August commemorating the 1945 atomic bombing of the Japanese city, opting to take a different path from Hiroshima, which has asked the Middle Eastern country to join its ceremony.Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki said in June that he had sent a letter to Israel calling for a cease-fire in the conflict in the Gaza Strip, while leaving an invitation to the Aug. 9 ceremony on hold due to the risk of "unexpected situations" such as protests, amid international condemnation of the country's war conduct.He said the "wrenching decision" not to invite Israel is "not a political one but is based on our hope that we want the ceremony conducted smoothly under a solemn atmosphere."
It is unclear how much of this is really fear over protests and how much because he simply doesn't like Israel. He first floated the idea that he might not invite Israel in early July, and a number of Western states told him that they might not come if Israel isn't invited:
Envoys of the United States and other Western nations sent a letter to Nagasaki in mid-July expressing concern over the city not inviting Israel to its peace ceremony on the anniversary of the 1945 atomic bombing by the United States, the document showed Wednesday as multiple ambassadors pulled out of the event.The letter, dated July 19 and sent ahead of Nagasaki's formal decision, warned that if Israel was excluded, "it would become difficult for us to have high-level participation" in the event.The envoys of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the United States and the European Union said it "would result in placing Israel on the same level as countries such as Russia and Belarus," which have not been invited to the ceremony for a third consecutive year.U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel will no longer attend the Nagasaki peace ceremony on Friday in response to the city not inviting Israel, a source familiar with the matter said the same day.British Ambassador to Japan Julia Longbottom also announced the previous day that she would be absent from the ceremony, as she disagreed with the decision by the southwestern city.
His ignoring those warnings indicates that it was not only fear of disruption that prompted his decision. Nevertheless, that is the oly reason he gave, so BDSers cannot claim that this was a principled decision to protest Israel's actions.
Meanwhile, in Hiroshima, their A-bomb memorial was held yesterday with Israeli participation. There were anti-Israel protests several hours afterwards at the same location at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, but as far as I can tell they did not disrupt the ceremony itself.
Terrorism is the use of violence and intimidation against civilians in the pursuit of political aims. Threats to disrupt any event if Israel participates is just another type of terrorism. And sometimes, as we see, it works.
