Israel–Japan relations

Israel-Japan relations began on May 15, 1952 when Japan recognized Israel and an Israeli legation opened in Tokyo. In 1954 Japan's ambassador to Turkey assumed the additional role of minister to Israel. In 1955 a Japanese legation with a Minister Plenipotentiary opened in Tel Aviv. Japan's trade relations with Arab nations and Iran take precedence over those with Israel.

1920s

In 1922, Norihiro Yasue and Koreshige Inuzuka returned from their military service in Siberia, where they first learned of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion while aiding the White Russians against the Red Army. Over the course of the 1920s, they wrote many reports on the Jews, and traveled to the Land of Israel (then the British Mandate of Palestine) to research them and to speak with Jewish leaders Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion. Yasue even translated the Protocols into Japanese. The pair managed to get the Foreign Ministry of Japan, or Gaimusho, interested in Judaism. Every Japanese embassy and consulate was requested to keep the Ministry informed of the actions and movements of Jewish communities in their countries.

Fugu Plan

Main article: Fugu Plan

The Fugu Plan was an idea first discussed in 1934, in Imperial Japan, centered around the idea of settling thousands, if not tens of thousands, of Jewish refugees escaping Nazi-occupied Europe, in Manchuria and Japanese-occupied Shanghai. The Imperial government wanted to gain Jewish economic prowess while convincing the United States, specifically American Jewry, to grant their favor and invest in Japan. The Plan was first discussed in 1934, and solidified in 1938 at the Five Ministers' Conference, but the signing of the Tripartite Pact in 1941, along with a number of other events, prevented its full implementation.

The plan was originally the idea of a small group of Japanese government and military officials led by Captain Inuzuka Koreshige (犬塚 惟重) and Colonel Yasue Norihiro (安江 仙弘) who came to be known as the "Jewish experts," along with industrialist Aikawa Yoshisuke (鮎川 義介) and a number of officials in the Kwantung Army known as the Manchurian Faction. The plan was named after the Japanese delicacy "fugu", a puffer-fish whose poison can kill if the dish is not prepared exactly correctly. The plan was based on a naive acceptance of European anti-Semitic prejudices, as found in the Japanese acceptance of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as fact. There misconception of Jewish power and wealth was partly due to their experience with Jacob Schiff, a Jewish-American banker who, thirty years earlier, loaned money to the Japanese government that it allowed it to win the Russo-Japanese War.

The 'Jewish experts' joined forces, to an extent, with the 'Manchurian faction,' Japanese military officials who wished to push for Japanese expansion into Manchuria. The faction was headed by Colonel Itagaki Seishiro (板垣 征四郎) and Lieutenant-Colonel Ishiwara Kanji (石原 莞爾), who were having trouble attracting Japanese settlers or investment into Manchuria.

In 1938 top government officials discussed the ideas and plans of the 'Jewish experts' in the Five Ministers' Conference.

The Plan never got off the ground. In 1939, the Jews of Shanghai requested that no more Jewish refugees be allowed into Shanghai, as their community's ability to support them was being stretched thin.

During World War II

Main article: Shanghai ghetto

In 1939, the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany, making the transport of Jews from Europe to Japan far more difficult. The Japanese government signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy, completely eliminating the possibility of any official aid for the Plan from Tokyo.

However, Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese Consul in Kovno, Lithuania, began to issue, against orders from Tokyo, transit visas to escaping Jews, allowing them to travel to Japan and stay there for a limited time, obstensibly stopping off on their way to their final destination, the Dutch colony of Curaçao, which required no entry visa. Thousands of Jews received transit visas from him, or through similar means. Some even copied, by hand, the visa that Sugihara had written. After the grueling process of requesting exit visas from the Soviet government, many Jews were allowed to cross Russia on the Trans-Siberian Railway, taking a boat from Vladivostok to Tsuruga, eventually being settled in Kobe, Japan.

Settler plans

Plans allowed for the settler populations to range in size from 18,000 up to 600,000 depending on how much funding and how many settlers were supplied by the world Jewish community. It was agreed, by all the planners, that Jewish settlers would be given complete freedom of religion, along with cultural and educational autonomy. While the Japanese were wary of giving the Jews too much freedom, they felt that some freedom would be necessary to maintain their favor, and their economic proficiencies. The officials asked to approve the plan insisted that, while the settlement was to appear autonomous, controls needed to be placed, behind the scenes, to keep Jews under close watch and under control. They feared that the Jews might take over mainstream Japanese government and economy, taking command of it the way they, according to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, had done in many other countries.

Impact

Several thousand Jews were rescued from almost certain death in Nazi Europe by the policies surrounding Japan's temporary pro-Jewish attitude, and Chiune Sugihara (杉原 千畝) was bestowed the honor of the Righteous Among the Nations by the Israeli government in 1985. In addition, the Mir Yeshiva, one of the largest centers of rabbinical study today, and the only European yeshiva to survive the Holocaust, survived as a result of these events.

Post-1950s relations

In 1955 Israel and Japan signed the "Agreement between the Government of Japan and the Government of the State of Israel on Cooperation in Science and Technology". Relations between the two states were distant at first, but after 1958, as demand in Japan for Israeli commodities was rising, relations between the governments were warming up. In 1963 both legations were upgraded to embassies. On November 22, 1973, the Japanese government stated it was reconsidering its relations with the Israeli government due to Israel's retention of lands occupied in 1967, but no break occurred. In 1993 both nations signed the "Convention between Japan and the State of Israel for the Avoidance of Double Taxation and the Prevention of Fiscal Evasion with Respect to Taxes on Income."

There are 708 Japanese Nationals in Israel as of October 1999 and 604 Israeli Nationals in Japan as of December 1998.

In 2000 the two nations signed the "Agreement between the Government of Japan and the Government of the State of Israel for Air Services."

The Japanese government appointed Yoshinori Katori, press secretary at the Foreign Ministry, as ambassador to Israel on August 1, 2006. Katori previously served as minister to South Korea and director-general of the Consular Affairs Bureau before assuming the current post in August 2005.

Economy

Israeli exports to Japan, consisting primarily of polished diamonds, chemical products, machinery, electrical equipment, and citrus fruit are worth $0.85 billion. Japanese exports to Israel, consisting primarily of automobiles, machinery, electrical equipment, and chemical products, are worth $1.1 billion.

Japan does not give assistance to Israel except in receiving Israeli students because of Israel's high GNP. Japan has provided emergency assistance for hygiene, medicine, and housing for the Palestinian Authority since the September 1993 Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Visits

Year	To Israel	To Japan
1985		Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir
1988	Foreign Minister Sousuke Uno
1989		President Chaim Herzog, Foreign Minister Moshe Arens
1990		President Chaim Herzog
1991	Foreign Minister Taro Nakayama
1992		Foreign Minister Shimon Peres
1994	Foreign Minister Koji Kakizawa, Special Envoy Kabun Muto	Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
1995	Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, Foreign Minister and Special Envoy Yohei Kono
1996	Foreign Minister Yukihiko Ikeda
1997		Foreign Minister David Levy, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
1999	Foreign Minister Masahiko Koumura, State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Nobutaka Machimura, Senior State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Shozo Azuma	Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nawaf Massalha
2002	Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi
2003	Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi
2005	Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura

Quotes

"Israel and Japan are situated at opposite ends of Asia, but this is a fact which binds them together rather than separates them. The vast continent of Asia is their connecting link, and the consciousness of their Asian destiny is their common thought."

David Ben-Gurion, July 1, 1952

References

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• Rabbi Marvin Tokayer, The Fugu Plan. New York: Weatherhill, Inc. (1979)
• The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Aum, and Antisemitism in Japan (PDF) by David G. Goodman at HUJI

See also

• Makuya
• Judaism in Japan

External links

• "Investigators launch probe into Japan boat crash" (Haaretz)
• "Friendly Relations With Japan"
• "EVS Receives Award from Israel-Japan Chamber of Commerce"
• "Japanese Policy in the middle East"
• "The Influence of External Factors on Foreign Policy: A Case Study of Japanese Policies towards Israel -1973-2003-"
• "ADL Leaders, in Tokyo, Praise Japan's Leadership in Global War Against Terrorism"
• "Japan's Koizumi mulling visits to Israel, Palestinian territories"
• "Japan and the Middle East: Signs of Change?"