The Japanese Deputy Minister of Health, Labor and Social Welfare and a member of the ruling party, Yoshio Kimura, was quoted in the press as having said at a medical conference that there are elements trying to exploit the Japanese welfare system for their own personal gain. He said that they were “Jew-like self-serving ghouls”. The Israeli Embassy in Tokyo issued a protest to Parliament and to the Japanese-Israeli Parliamentary Friendship Association. Deputy Minister Kimura apologized for what he had said. At the same time, the Wiesenthal Institute also reacted to what Kimura had said, and sent a letter to Japanese Prime Minister Koyzumi in which it demanded that steps be taken against the Deputy Minister. The letter, which was shown on the Institute’s Internet Home Page, was also released to the media.
Deputy Minister Kimura called a press conference and admitted that he had erred in what he had said. The news agencies also reported that the Minister of Health, Labor and Social Welfare, Kimura’s superior, reprimanded him for what he had said. Of note is the fact that the Japanese Consulates in the United States were also approached following the publication of Kimura’s comment.
