Division between Japan and Other G7 Countries

The City of Nagasaki held 79th Peace Memorial Ceremony on August 9th. While the mayor requested the government of Japan to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the prime minister of Japan insisted on working with Non-Proliferation Treaty. Protesting the mayor who did not invited the Ambassador of Israel, the G7 Ambassadors to Japan effectively boycotted the ceremony. Sharp opposition over Israel’s offense to Palestine brought a division in hope for peace. 

In his Peace Declaration, the Mayor of Nagasaki, Shiro Suzuki, quoted a poetry of hibakusha. “People making atomic bombs! Rest from your work for a while and close your eyes. It was on August 9, 1945 --,” reads the poetry. It appeals that a nuclear weapon leaves infinite grievance over the loss of their families and relatives forever. Suzuki urged world leaders to acknowledge the reality in which threat on humankind are increasing due to existence of nuclear weapons and to make a shift toward abolition of nuclear weapons.

 

Referring to a meeting of International Group of Eminent Persons for a World without Nuclear Weapons in Nagasaki last December, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida appealed his effort for positive outcome in next review conference of NPT. The Japanese government has firmly been negative to participate in the nuclear prohibition treaty. Kishida did not touch on the treaty in his speech for the ceremony.

 

Suzuki did not invite Ambassador of Israel to the ceremony this year. Suzuki explained that the decision was made for the ceremony to be held in a calm and solemn environment. Suzuki was afraid of unexpected event happening, considering critical humanitarian situation in Gaza Strip and international opinion on it. He insisted that it had nothing to do with any political intention.

 

It was reported that six Ambassadors of G7 countries, except Japan, and European Union sent a letter to the City of Nagasaki, notifying their absence to the ceremony. U.S. Ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel, explained that excluding Israel drew a moral equivalency between Russian and Israel, one country that invaded versus one country that was victim of invasion, and that he did not attend the ceremony with respect of that political judgement.

 

Citizens in Nagasaki was also divided on the decision of Suzuki. “It is inappropriate to invite a country in a war to this place,” said a son of hibakusha in Nagasaki. Another hibakusha hoped to invite the ambassador of Israel to let him know about a consequence of war.

 

The government of Japan pretended to be a stranger. “We are not at a position to respond to it. It is up to the decision of City of Nagasaki on whom it would invite to the ceremony,” said Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yoshimasa Hayashi. There is no footprint that the government of Japan made any effort to explain anti-war sentiment of the citizens in Nagasaki to G7 ambassadors, or international politics over the war between Israel and Hamas to Nagasaki.

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