Nobel Peace Prize: Middle East Peacemakers vs Violent Rioters
Due to an unprecedented portfolio of peace agreements, the Trump negotiating team was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. But other nominations underscore the spotty past of the prestigious award.
Trump Team: All About Peace
Former White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, Special Representative for International Negotiations Avi Berkowitz, former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, and former Israeli Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer were nominated on Sunday for the Nobel Peace Prize for their work in brokering the Abraham Accords that normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. The team also brokered similar agreements between Israel and Sudan and Morocco, as well as agreements between Kosovo and Serbia that included Israel and an agreement between Saudi Arabia and several Arab nations and Qatar.
The team of negotiators was nominated for the prize by attorney Alan Dershowitz who was eligible to do so in his capacity as a professor emeritus of Harvard Law School.
“These Accords, which have brought about normalization between Israel and several Sunni Arab nations, fulfill all the criteria for the prize. They hold the promise of an even broader peace in the Middle East between Israel, the Palestinians and other Arab nations. They are a giant step forward in bringing peace and stability to the region, and even to the world,” Dershowitz wrote in his nomination letter. “The Nobel Peace Prize is not for popularity. Nor is it an assessment of what the international community may think of those who helped bring about peace. It is an award for fulfilling the daunting criteria set out by Alfred Nobel in his will.”
Kushner said in a statement he was honored to be nominated for the prize, which will be awarded in October.
Trump was also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in September by a Norwegian politician in recognition of his role in these peace deals. The former president was also nominated for the prize in 2018 by two Norwegian lawmakers for his efforts to bring reconciliation to North and South Korea.
Abraham Accords in Danger?
After signing the Abraham Accords, the US agreed to a $23 billion sale of 50 hyper-advanced F-35 fighters to the UAE, underscoring the basis of the peace agreement being Iranian expansionism fueled by the Obama/Biden-brokered Iran deal which President Trump abandoned. Upon entering the Oval Office, President Biden put the sale of F-35s on hold and began negotiations to reinstate the Iran deal.
Other Nominees
The Black Lives Matter movement was also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Petter Eide, a member of the Socialist Left Party in the Norwegian Parliament and the former secretary-general of the Norwegian branch of Amnesty International. Eide made the nomination while acknowledging that at least 10% of the BLM protests in the last year turned violent, resulting in billions of dollars of damage and several deaths. Eide justified his decision, blaming the violence on the actions of the police at the protests.
Among others nominated for the prize this year are Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, the World Health Organization, and climate campaigner Greta Thunberg. All were backed by Norwegian lawmakers.
The Nobel Prize for Peace has been plagued by controversy. The 1994 prize went to Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, and Yitzhak Rabin “for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East”. Arafat, an unrepentant terrorist with Jewish blood on his hand, ironically accepted the prize while wearing a military uniform. His nomination led to one member of the Nobel committee resigning in protest. Teh resulting Oslo Accords has proven to be an unmitigated disaster resulting in two intifadas.
The 2009 prize went to Barack Obama “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”. The award, given just nine months into Obama’s first term as president, received criticism that it was undeserved, premature, politically motivated, and wishful. In 2015, the director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute who oversaw the decision wrote in his memoir that he regretted the decision.
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