We have turned the Nagasaki 80th into a celebration of Israeli genocide
Israel’s key enablers, the G7, plus Australia and New Zealand, have succeeded in muscling Israel back onto the invite list for the commemorations in Nagasaki on 9 August. Last year Israel was excluded, triggering a refusal by these countries to attend in 2024. Does the ‘personal’ invitation that Nagasaki has just sent to Israel represent a triumph of Western diplomacy or a sick joke?
You know who your mates are when you’re committing genocide
As I wrote at the time, the boycott by the powerful white-dominated Western nations was a stunning “Fuck you” to the Hibakusha, the last few survivors of the US’s 1945 nuclear attack. More importantly it was as clear a statement of collective commitment to Israel’s war on Palestine as you could possibly wish for. You really find out who your true mates are when you’re committing genocide.
At the time, Shigemitsu Tanaka, the 83-year-old head of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivors Council, said he supported the move to keep the Israelis away from the commemorations, saying it was inappropriate to invite representatives from countries waging armed conflicts in defiance of calls from the international community.
Israel’s invitation is a triumph of Western pressure
A year later, the City buckled under pressure and has personally invited the Israelis. “After Israel was excluded last year over the Gaza war, Nagasaki’s mayor is avoiding renewed diplomatic tensions – especially following a clear message from the US,” Israel’s influential news site, Ynet reported this month.
It is a triumph for Netanyahu and his government, cause for celebration in Tel Aviv, but diminishes the nobility of an event that was created with the explicit intention to say Never Again and to remind the world of the indefensible criminality of attacks on defenceless civilian populations.
Nagasaki and the Boycott Israel campaign
Israel goes to incredible lengths to break efforts to impose BDS (Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions) and so Nagasaki had to be brought to heel. July 2025 marked the 20th anniversary of the founding of BDS, a non-violent campaign designed to hold Israel accountable for its crimes and apply real-world pressure for the state to change course.
BDS is potentially a game-changer which is why Israeli government ministers routinely make threats of physical violence against leading BDS activists. Israel Katz, currently the Israeli Defence Minister, is on record as calling for Israel to engage in ‘targeted civil eliminations’ of BDS leaders with the help of Israeli intelligence.
70,000 tons of bombs on Gaza – and Israel is invited to a peace ceremony
Think for a moment what the presence of Israel at this year’s event represents as an astonishing piece of semiology. A state that is actively committing the crime of crimes, genocide, sitting alongside the Hibakusha. They won’t be the only war criminals in attendance. American, German, and British bombs have levelled the tiny enclave of Gaza. More of their bombs – 70,000 tons and climbing – have been used to massacre Palestinians in Gaza than were used in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (36,000 tons), the fire bombings of Tokyo (1,665 tons) and Dresden (3,900 tons), and the London Blitz (19,000 tons) combined. And it is happening on our watch.
Another piece of astonishing optics: less than two months ago the US and Israel bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities, doing so with no UN mandate but only their position as powerful, lawless states. Their actions dramatically raise the prospect of Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and others deciding they need nuclear weapons as deterrence. What look will the US and Israeli ambassadors cast over their faces as the Mayor of Nagasaki delivers the message of "Nagasaki's wish for the establishment of lasting world peace and the abolition of nuclear weapons?”
Is the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize the next to be trashed?
Talking of tone deaf and morally repellent, Donald Trump has been openly lobbying to receive the Nobel Peace Prize despite having killed thousands of people and bombed multiple countries this year. Interestingly, the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize winner was Nihon Hidankyo (Japan's Atomic Bomb Survivors Organization).
In his acceptance speech last year, Terumi Tanaka, one of the Co-Chairpersons of Nihon Hidankyo, said that the organisation was created in 1956 “to demand the immediate abolition of nuclear weapons, as extremely inhumane weapons of mass killing, which must not be allowed to coexist with humanity.”
New Zealand is a genocide enabler. What happened to our soft power?
As a New Zealander I am deeply ashamed of my country for having refused to attend last year's ceremony and for its criminal complicity with Israel today. New Zealand’s tragic trajectory from humanitarian champions and nuclear-free pioneers to racist genocide enablers is captured in all its horror in next month’s Nagasaki commemorations.
New Zealand, the country that went to the brink of civil war in 1981 to stop sporting contact with Apartheid South Africa is now a fully-paid up member of Apartheid Israel’s war on Palestine. Everywhere our government is tearing down the pillars built by decades of struggle in New Zealand. The anti-nuclear policy, the anti-apartheid victories, the non-aligned foreign policies, the sacred principles of partnership between indigenous Maori and the Pakeha (those who settled from Europe and elsewhere) are all being shredded.
We refuse to recognize Palestine, we refuse to join South Africa’s case against Israel at the ICJ, we refuse to join the Hague Group which is mobilising countries to make those responsible for the genocide accountable and to shoulder state-level responsibility for forcing the end to it. But we mobilise to get Israel invited to the Nagasaki peace events.
From Auschwitz to Nagasaki to Gaza: whatever happened to Never Again? Whatever happened to our decency? The Australian journalist Caitlin Johnstone wrote this month “If you're still supporting Israel in the year 2025, there's something seriously wrong with you as a person.” That goes triple for governments.
Eugene Doyle
