Nipponica

Rahm Emanuel would not attend the event on Friday because it had been “politicised” by Nagasaki’s decision not to invite Israel, the embassy said. Instead, he would honour the victims of the Nagasaki bombing at a ceremony at a Buddhist temple in Tokyo and a lower-ranked US official would attend the Nagasaki event, it said.

The mayor of Nagasaki, Shiro Suzuki, said his decision not to invite Israel was unchanged despite announcements by the US, five other G7 countries and the EU that they would send lower-ranked envoys instead of ambassadors to the ceremony.

“We only want to hold the ceremony in a peaceful and solemn atmosphere” to honour the victims, Suzuki said on Thursday. “It is absolutely not because of political reasons.

This is a bad call for the US and its undeserving ambassador to Japan. The US destroyed Nagasaki and should always be there to acknowledge its past.