How do Israel-Japan ties impact the Jewish state in the Middle East? - opinion

I recently spent four days in Tokyo, meeting with government officials, international relations mavens, and Middle East specialists, coming away optimistic about the trajectory of Israel-Japan ties. 

Japan reestablished its political independence on April 28, 1952, with the end of the postwar US military occupation; less than three weeks later, it recognized Israel. This expeditious diplomacy was perhaps a way for the new democratic Japan to distance itself from its Axis past. 

During the Second World War, the Empire of Japan was Nazi Germany’s most important ally. But while the wartime Imperial Japanese Army was involved in atrocities, including the infamous “Rape of Nanjing,” unlike the Germans, the Japanese were never in the business of mass-murdering Jews.

Japanese-occupied Shanghai is a case in point. Approximately 25,000 Jewish refugees found a haven in the Chinese coastal metropolis. In 1941, Berlin’s emissaries proposed the liquidation of those Jews, but Tokyo refused the idea. 

While 2,000 people perished in the Hongkou ghetto, historians do not discern that Shanghai’s Jews necessarily fared worse than the city’s other European inhabitants – some researchers even attesting to the ghetto’s relatively tolerable conditions. 

But while postwar Israel-Japan ties got off to a very early start, they didn’t go anywhere in particular. 

How Israel-Japan ties were forged

The “economic miracle” that led to Japan becoming a founding member of the G-7 group of global industrial powerhouses, saw Tokyo increasingly prioritize relations with the Arab world. Middle Eastern oil became the irreplaceable lifeblood of Japan’s economic growth, and petrodollars provided an irresistible market for its manufactured exports.

Accordingly, while Tokyo was polite and proper with Jerusalem, it remained aloof. Japan wasn’t the only country to heed the Arab boycott of Israel, but Tokyo abided by it more “honorably” than others. And while Europeans discovered ways to trade with Israel without incurring a negative Arab backlash, Japanese companies, fearing the Arab League’s blacklist, continued to strictly observe the boycott’s discriminatory guidelines. 

One particularly visible consequence was the total absence of Japanese cars on Israeli roads. That only changed in 1969 when Subaru became the first – and for years, the sole – Japanese automaker in the Israeli market. 

The company ran a thriving business. So much so, that when I immigrated to Israel in 1982, Subarus were ubiquitous, even an icon. Driving one became an expression of “Israeliness,” alongside drinking Elite’s Turkish coffee, and smoking Time cigarettes. 

SUBARU’S LOCAL success aside, overall relations with Tokyo continued to tread water. Even after Japan formally exited the Arab boycott in 1991, it remained highly reticent about expanding ties with Israel.

In 1988, three and a half decades after Japan’s initial diplomatic recognition, Sosuke Uno became the first Japanese foreign minister to visit Jerusalem. And only in 1995 did Tomiichi Murayama become the first Japanese prime minister to do the same. 

I remember prime minister Junichiro Koizumi’s July 2006 visit. As Foreign Ministry spokesman, I was doing an early morning live interview in the Jerusalem studio of the Japanese public broadcaster NHK, when suddenly my cellphone turned red hot with reports of a Hezbollah attack in the North.

Unfortunately, the escalating violence eclipsed the visit. To his credit, prime minister Ehud Olmert didn’t defer the planned meeting with Koizumi on what was the opening day of the Second Lebanon War. 

The turning point in Japan-Israel relations occurred under two right-wing prime ministers, Shinzo Abe, and Benjamin Netanyahu. With some encouragement from his Israeli counterpart, Abe realized that Japan’s policy on Israel was anachronistic, self-defeating, and out of step with the rest of the developed world. 

Moreover, he understood that Japanese industry was missing opportunities offered by partnering with Israel’s innovative hi-tech sector, and with the Arab Gulf opening to Israel, Tokyo’s approach fitted the adage of being “more Catholic than the Pope.” 

All bureaucracies adapt to change slowly, and Japan’s maybe even more so. It took a strong leader like Abe to force through a change in the way Japan dealt with Israel. 

As a result, today bilateral ties are in a much better place. In a recent column in The Japan News newspaper, Gilad Cohen, Israel’s Tokyo ambassador, referred to the 90 Japanese companies with offices in Israel, and to Japan’s direct investment which has reached a record high – over $14 billion since 2014, accounting for 13% of total direct investment.

Cohen also opaquely mentioned burgeoning defense cooperation. Although the ambassador avoided details, experts presume he was alluding to collaboration in the areas of missile defense, UAVs, and cyber security.

WHEN IT comes to defense, Jerusalem and Tokyo have much in common. If many Israelis are convinced that their country confronts unique security challenges, they might be surprised to learn that the Japanese face a triple threat: the nuclear-armed and missile-launching North Korean “hermit kingdom;” an aggressive Russia with which Japan has an unresolved territorial dispute over four northern islands; and an increasingly powerful and assertive China that seeks to be the East Asian hegemon.

For obvious reasons, Tokyo closely follows Beijing’s growing influence in the Middle East – China’s new clout demonstrated in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s December 2022 visit to Saudi Arabia, and in Beijing’s regional diplomacy that produced the March 2023 restoration of relations between Tehran and Riyadh. 

Despite attempts to diversify its sources of energy, Japan remains dependent on the Middle East for over 90% of its oil, and it cannot but pay attention to Beijing’s enhanced footprint, which is forcing Tokyo to think again about its own presence. 

Last month, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida was in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE. Tokyo is also exploring avenues of regional involvement through the Abraham Accords by partnering with Abu Dhabi and Jerusalem in developing areas of collaboration. 

Japan’s augmentation of Israel’s new ties with the Gulf could provide tangible support for Middle East peace – far more so than China’s grandiose (and unrealistic) proposal to mediate between Jerusalem and Ramallah.

Also very tangible is El Al’s new biweekly direct Tel Aviv-Tokyo flight, bringing the two countries closer together; plans are underway for a triweekly route. 

It has taken a while, but over 70 years since Tokyo’s initial diplomatic recognition, the Israel-Japan relationship finally appears to be moving into high gear. 

Postscript: I visited Japan along with the Abba Eban Institute’s Asia specialist, Dr. Gedaliah Afterman, as guests of University of Tokyo Professor Satoshi Ikeuchi. We are working together on a conference showcasing proposals for trilateral Israel-Japan-UAE cooperation that will be held in October at Reichman University.

The writer, formerly an adviser to the prime minister, is chair of the Abba Eban Institute for Diplomacy at Reichman University. Connect with him on LinkedIn, @Ambassador Mark Regev.