Israeli Official Finds J-Victim Ceremonies Self-Righteous

[Mike Oxlong]

Israel apologizes to Japan over offensive Facebook comments
Daniel Seaman, since suspended from his post of head of the interactive media unit in the PMO, ridiculed Japanese memorial ceremonies for atomic bomb victims on Facebook.

Ya’akov Amidror, national security advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has issued a formal apology to the Japanese ambassador to Israel over disparaging comments made by another official, Daniel Seaman, on his Facebook page. Amidror also informed the ambassador, Hideo Sato, that Seaman has been suspended from his position until further notice and that his remarks in no way represented the position of the Israeli government, according to a senior Foreign Ministry official.

Seaman, designated head of the interactive media unit in the National Information Directorate of the Prime Minister’s Office, criticized memorial ceremonies for victims of the American nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, writing “I am sick of the Japanese, ‘Human Rights’ and ‘Peace’ groups the world over holding their annual self righteous commemorations for the Hiroshima and Nagasaki victims. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the consequence of Japanese aggression. You reap what you sow. Instead, they should be commemorating the estimated 50 million Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Malay, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Indonesian, Burmese and other victims of Japanese imperial aggression and genocide."

Seaman’s racist and offensive Facebook posts were first disclosed on the Diplomania blog on the Haaretz website.

The Facebook comments caused a diplomatic incident between Israel and Japan, in addition to a storm of controversy among the Japanese public. Israel's ambassador in Tokyo, Nissim Ben-Shitrit, was forced over the past week to engage in damage control over the diplomatic repercussions of the case. "The incident is very slowly subsiding, but it's too early to assess the damage to Israel's image that it caused," the Israeli embassy in Tokyo wrote in a cable to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem.

Seaman's comments were widely reported in the Japanese media, a spokesman at the Israeli embassy in Japan acknowledged, and spread rapidly on Internet social media. The Internet news coverage generated a large number of comments on various websites, most of which were expressions of anger. The coverage was also shared thousands of times on Facebook and Twitter. In a reflection of how high-profile the case had become, an entry about Seaman was added to the Japanese version of Wikipedia, the online Internet encyclopedia. A Google Web search of Seaman's name in Japanese generates more than 100,000 mentions of his name on the Internet...

[Russell]

The Israelis did the right thing by forcing this official to step down.

Abe with his Nazi comments on the other hand...

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

Like Russell, I also find it quite appropriate that an envoy named Ben-Shitrit shoots off this Seaman.

Pot...kettle...

[Samurai_Jerk]

Maybe there was more to what Seaman posted but I don't see anything "racist" in what's quoted in the article.

[matsuki]

A Google Web search of Seaman's name in Japanese generates more than 100,000 mentions

Maybe there was more to what Seaman posted but I don't see anything "racist" in what's quoted in the article.

That was my thought as well....

[IparryU]

The Israelis did the right thing by forcing this official to step down.

Abe with his Nazi comments on the other hand...

You forgot Aso, Ishihara and Hashimoto...

[Samurai_Jerk]

Seaman was right, by the way.

[matsuki]

Seaman was right, by the way.

Yep, except in Japan where the statements are obviously anti-Japanese and if you disagree, you are anti-Japanese as well Where are the officials from all those countries listed? Nobody wants to back this guy up?