JERUSALEM: Israel has been forced to issue a formal apology to Japan over offensive comments posted on Facebook by its head of online public diplomacy.

The apology followed a complaint by the Japanese ambassador to Israel, Hideo Sato, after government official Daniel Seaman disparaged commemorations for the victims of the 1945 atomic bombs, causing a wave of protests in Japan.

“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,” Seaman wrote on his Facebook page. “Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the consequence of Japanese aggression. You reap what you sow ...”

According to Haaretz, Israel’s ambassador in Tokyo, Nissim Ben-Shitrit, was forced to embark on a damage control exercise. “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.

The apology was issued by Ya’akov Amidror, national security advisor to prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A government official said the incident was “one of the least comfortable moments for Israel in Japan”.

Seaman, a former director of the government press office who has a reputation for being abrasive, recently took up a new post to promote positive images of Israel on social media networks. He has since been suspended and is under orders not to speak to the media.

The comments about Japan were part of a string of strongly-worded postings by Seaman over recent months.

By arrangement with the Guardian