Civil rights group thanks Nagasaki for not inviting rep of a nation that does not adhere to NPT, ‘despite possessing nuclear weapons’
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today condemned a decision by the U.S. ambassador to Japan to reject an invitation to attend Nagasaki’s annual peace memorial ceremony marking the day an atomic bomb was dropped on that Japanese city because a representative of the far-right genocidal Israeli government has not been invited.
SEE: U.S. Ambassador to Skip Peace Ceremony in Japan Over Israel’s Omission – New York Times
Last month, CAIR joined the international call for the city of Hiroshima to disinvite Israel from its annual commemoration of the 1945 atomic bombing over the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza.
[NOTE: “Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, though the country neither acknowledges nor denies the existence of a nuclear arsenal. Israel is not a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and has not accepted IAEA safeguards on some of its principle nuclear activities.”]
Israel has already slaughtered almost 40,000 people, mostly women and children in Gaza, and destroyed much of the civilian infrastructure in a campaign of ethnic cleansing, forced starvation and genocide.
In a statement, CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper said:
“Instead of coming to the defense of a far-right genocidal government, our nation’s representatives around the world should embrace a universal standard of human rights and humanity that does not exclude the Palestinian people. We thank the city of Nagasaki for not inviting the representative of a nation currently engaged in genocide and that does not adhere to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, despite possessing nuclear weapons.”
Earlier this week, CAIR called for international action after UN experts warned of “escalating use of torture” by Israel against Palestinian prisoners.
CAIR called on the Biden administration to condemn a top Israeli official who claims that it “might be justified and moral” to starve two million Gazan to death and condemned what it called the “seemingly endless” massacres of Palestinian children in Gaza by forces of the far-right Israeli government.
On Saturday, CAIR said President Biden either “doesn’t know or doesn’t care” about the Israeli government’s daily massacres of Palestinian children after the administration failed to condemn the latest Israeli bombing of Palestinian civilians, an airstrike on a school sheltering displaced persons in Gaza City that killed at least 17 people, most of them women and children.
Last week, CAIR said the Biden administration must take action after Israeli authorities announced a new seizure of Palestinian land in the West Bank and Israeli forces again massacred civilians in Gaza.
CAIR also said the administration must act on more reports of torture Palestinian prisoners after 15 prisoners released by Israel in Gaza say they were beaten, deprived of food, forced to remain in harsh physical positions throughout the day, and attacked by dogs. “They broke our hands and feet,” one of the former prisoners said. The Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs also reported that a Palestinian from Gaza held in an Israeli prison has died after being tortured. Israeli officials have defended the torture of Palestinian detainees.
Washington, D.C., based CAIR said the continuing silence of the Biden administration on multiple reports of Israeli torture, rape and abuse of Palestinian detainees is “enabling the abuse to continue.”
CAIR called on media outlets in the United States and worldwide to speak out after Israel killed Al Jazeera journalists Ismail al-Ghoul and his cameraman Rami al-Refee.
Israel has already slaughtered almost 40,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, and displaced the vast majority of its population in a campaign of systematic destruction of homes and infrastructure. More than 1.8 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes by Israel.
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CONTACT: CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell, 404-285-9530, e-Mitchell@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, ihooper@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Manager Ismail Allison, 202-770-6280, iallison@cair.com