Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – When I read about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nominating convicted felon Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, my inclination was to write a piece of satire about it. But that would be redundant. Comedian Ronny Chieng mined for the dark humor saying, “Yes, a Peace Prize nomination from Netanyahu is very meaningful — right up there with a Husband of the Year nomination from O.J. Simpson.” We live in a world of bad reality TV, in which the most banal and absurd talking points are taken seriously by millions; and mass transgressions against humanity are positioned as positive virtues.
Trump and Netanyahu have been nurturing and enabling one another’s crimes since Trump’s first presidency. They have become Siamese criminals, carving out twin paths of criminality with the standing and benefits of “statesmen.” They are not. It doesn’t get any more inverted than this: Two of the most incorrigible and corrupt war-mongers of the 21st Century interfering in the judicial, electoral and legal affairs of each other’s nations, and one nominating the other for the Nobel Peace Prize. The word is blasphemous.
For the sake of grandstanding, Netanyahu made the announcement not at a press conference, but during a White House State dinner. The occasion was to discuss their vision for completing the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, so that Trump can build his dream “Riviera of the Middle East” resort. The whole thing is downright Orwellian. While they discussed which countries might be willing to accept the Palestinian refugees that Netanyahu turned into refugees by destroying their homes and repeatedly displacing them, Netanyahu praised Trump for his “pursuit of peace and security, which you are leading in many lands, but now, especially in the Middle East.” When he discussed “seizing opportunities,” Netanyahu really meant seizing more land in violation of International Law. And he stoked the fiction that the Abraham Accords had “forged peace,” when it is really a diplomatic landmine bound to explode in the future.
Herding 600,000 Palestinians into South Rafah — Netanyahu’s current planned war crime — is not an achievement for peace. It is ghettoizing the survivors of starvation and war, as badly as Jews were ghettoized in Europe, or worse. Another Orwellian usage from Netanyahu was to call Trump’s Gaza plan “free choice,” and then “voluntary migration.” Sounds more like forced migration or an Inquisition than a peace plan.
There is an ongoing rush to fawn over Trump among Republican Congressional reps and senators. On June 24, Georgia Rep. Buddy Carter nominated Trump for the Nobel Prize for brokering a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, after bombing Tehran, which resulted in as many as 430 civilian deaths, and 3,500 wounded. Killing and maiming innocent people does not check a box for the Nobel Peace Prize. Bombing an adversary into submission isn’t making a ceasefire. Netanyahu’s motivations for fawning over Trump are different, and reflect their mutual Faustian bargain to support one another’s criminal enterprises; and to escape prison sentences by holding onto their offices.
Essentially, Netanyahu’s nomination of Trump is a grotesque “thank-you” note for bombing Iran, and for the Abraham Accords; which excluded the Palestinians, the primary subjects, from any negotiations or tangible benefits. In fact, it led to riots by Palestinians fighting unlawful eviction from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem. Marginalizing Palestinian rights of residency or return does not check a box for the Nobel Prize; nor does bribing/blackmailing their supporters, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, into abandoning their cause.
Supporting the ethnic cleansing of Gaza to make room for Trump’s ghastly proposed monument to genocide, “Riviera of the Middle East,” does not check a box for the Nobel Prize. Because the nominations for this year’s Nobel Prizes closed in January, the Nobel Committee won’t act on it now, when they have 338 nominations to process. It is doubtful they would ever consider it, given that Netanyahu cannot even go to Oslo for fear of being arrested under a warrant for war crimes issued by the International Criminal Court.
A surprising irony is that Trump opposed the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank during his first term, because he was advised to prioritize achieving a two-state solution. But appointing the far-right pro-settler figure David Friedman as US ambassador to Israel was a tacit green light for Netanyahu to expand the illegal settlements. Trump has no real political convictions or ideology, beyond whatever aids his own grifting and self-dealing. As for Netanyahu, he is simply sucking up to his sugar daddy, who has given him all the outrageous goodies he has long wanted, especially license to make seize what’s left of Palestinian land for himself, to expel all the Palestinians and to reduce Iran to rubble.
“Ig Nobel,” Digital, ChatGPT, 2025
Alfred Nobel’s will stated that the peace prize is awarded to, “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” Neither Trump nor Netanyahu check any of those boxes. President Barack Obama won the Nobel Prize in 2009 for advancing nuclear non-proliferation, and developing more friendly relations with Muslim countries. President Jimmy Carter was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2002 for his humanitarian work long after leaving office. Prior to that, former VP Al Gore won the Prize in 2007 for his work in promoting environmental awareness and creating new climate safeguards. Woodrow Wilson was awarded the 1920 Prize for his role in ending World War I at the Versailles Conference, and the ill-fated League of Nations, though the result was dubious. The first US President to win the award was Theodore Roosevelt for his involvement in ending the Russian-Japan War in 1906. Trump has accomplished nothing positive in the realms of diplomacy, peace, climate preservation.
Ultimately, the Abraham Accords will likely be consigned to the same history dustbin as the failed League of Nations. What’s happening now fulfills the nightmare template of George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm, but is now beyond even his dystopian imagination.
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