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Nobel: The prize for peace that leaders go to war for

Special Nobel: The prize for peace that leaders go to war for
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, handed US President Donald Trump an envelope with a letter he reportedly sent to the Nobel committee during their July 7 meeting in the White House Blue Room. (AP)
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Updated 10 July 2025

Nobel: The prize for peace that leaders go to war for

Nobel: The prize for peace that leaders go to war for
  • Israeli PM’s nomination of Trump has reopened debate over the Nobel Peace Prize’s meaning and credibility
  • As Gaza burns and indictments loom, a wartime leader endorsing a recipient raises questions, says analyst

LONDON: In what supporters have called a symbol of solidarity and detractors a humiliating act of fealty, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week revealed he had nominated Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize — an award long sought by the US president.

The decision by Netanyahu appears designed to help bolster ties between the two long-term allies and ease reported tensions over Israel’s 21-month-long war in Gaza and its bruising 12-day conflict with Iran last month.

Netanyahu presented the nomination letter to Trump at the White House on Monday, and was met with a look of surprise from the US president.

“It’s nominating you for the Peace Prize, which is well deserved, and you should get it,” Netanyahu said.

“Wow, coming from you, in particular, this is very meaningful. Thank you very much, Bibi,” Trump responded.

FASTFACTS:

• The Nobel Peace Prize was founded by Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite.

• Regret over his invention partly drove Nobel to create the prize to promote peace.

• Carl von Ossietzky, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Liu Xiaobo, were imprisoned when awarded.

• The youngest Nobel Peace laureate is Malala Yousafzai, who received it in 2014 at age 17.

For Dania Koleilat Khatib, a specialist in US-Arab relations, Netanyahu’s decision to nominate the president rests on his desire to “do anything to court Trump.”

She told Arab News that Netanyahu arrived in Washington with a set of demands covering almost every regional file of interest to Israel: Syria, Turkiye, Gaza, the West Bank and Iran.

Netanyahu is also seeking US guarantees relating to arms supplies, especially after Iran’s ballistic missile barrages last month placed substantial pressure on Israeli air defense systems, Khatib said.

“He wants to show Trump that he is the best ally he can have; he also knows that Trump is really looking after getting the Nobel Peace Prize,” she added.




President Donald Trump looks at a document during a meeting with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on July 7, 2025, in Washington. (AP)

Trump has made no secret of his yearning for the prestigious prize, yet the nomination itself is only the first part of an extensive, secret process that winds up in the stately committee room of Oslo’s Nobel Institute.

The distinction and tradition of the Nobel name, however, is arguably a far cry from the reputation of Trump’s nominator.

Netanyahu, alongside former defense minister Yoav Gallant, is the subject of an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court over allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity relating to the conduct of Israel’s military in Gaza.




Protesters demonstrate on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC., during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to the United States on July 24, 2024, amid Israel's war bombardment of civilian homes in Gaza on July 24, 2024. (AFP/File)

That fact would no doubt weigh on the minds of the five Norwegian Nobel Committee members who deliberate over the prize.

For Khatib, the ICC arrest warrant alone means that Netanyahu’s gesture is “worthless.”

She told Arab News: “I am not sure whether the nomination will be discarded but it is ironic that someone wanted by the ICC for alleged war crimes and potentially genocide nominates someone for the Nobel Peace Prize.”

GUIDELINES ON NOBEL NOMINATIONS

• Only nominees put forward by qualified nominators are considered.

• Self-nominations are not accepted.

• The prize may be awarded to individuals or organizations.

Upholding the reputation of the prize is a tall order, in part due to the strictness of its rules. The committee’s choice for the annual award effectively ties the Nobel name to the future reputation of any recipient. The Nobel Foundation’s Statutes also forbid the revocation of any award.

Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese icon of democracy, fell from grace over her treatment of the Rohingya Muslim minority in the decades since she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.

Former US President Barack Obama was controversially awarded the prize just nine months into his first term, to the dismay of figures including Trump, who called on the institution to retract the award.

The decision to award Obama for “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples” soon appeared foolish after it emerged the president had told aides, referring to his use of drone strikes: “Turns out I’m really good at killing people.”




US President Barack Obama delivers a speech after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize at the Oslo City Hall in Oslo, Norway, on December 10, 2009. (AFP)

The Nobel Committee’s then secretary, Geir Lundestad, later expressed regret over the decision. “Even many of Obama’s supporters believed that the prize was a mistake,” he said. “In that sense the committee didn’t achieve what it had hoped for.”

Khatib told Arab News that the most basic requirement of the prize is that the recipient contributes to peace.

“I personally don’t know why Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize,” she told Arab News. “What was the achievement for which he was awarded the prize?”

The Obama controversy may well have sparked Trump’s desire to win the prize. He has referred to the 2009 award numerous times since, and has regularly expressed frustration over an accomplishment that he feels has eluded him.




This photo taken on December 10, 2009, shows protesters from the group The World Can't Wait during a 'coffin march' against US President Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize after his announcement of a troop surge in Afghanistan. (Getty Images via AFP)

Netanyahu’s nomination of Trump, however, is only the most recent that the US leader has received. He was nominated separately by a group of House Republicans in the US and two Norwegian lawmakers for his work to defuse nuclear tensions with North Korea in 2018.

In 2021, Trump was also nominated by one of the two Norwegian lawmakers and a Swedish official for his peace efforts in the Middle East, including the Abraham Accords, which established formal relations between Israel and several Arab states.

Shinzo Abe, the late former prime minister of Japan, also nominated Trump in 2019.

Earlier this year, Pakistan said that it had nominated Trump for the prize in recognition of his work to end the country’s brief conflict with India. New Delhi later denied that Washington played a role in mediation.

WHO CAN NOMINATE

• Members of national assemblies and governments.

• Members of international courts.

• University rectors, professors, and directors of peace research or foreign policy institutes.

• Past laureates and board members of laureate organizations.

* Current and former Norwegian Nobel Committee members and former advisers.

Trump is also working toward a diplomatic solution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which has so far defied his negotiators.

A day after Monday’s White House meeting, Netanyahu’s office released a copy of the nomination letter — dated July 1 — seen by Trump.

“President Trump has demonstrated steadfast and exceptional dedication to promoting peace, security and stability around the world,” it said.

“In the Middle East, his efforts have brought about dramatic change and created new opportunities to expand the circle of peace and normalization.”




President Donald Trump was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize when Bahrain and the UAE signed the so-called Abraham Accords with Israel at the White House in Washington, DC, on September 15, 2020. (AFP/file)

The prime minister’s letter singled out the Abraham Accords as Trump’s “foremost achievement” in the region.

“These breakthroughs reshaped the Middle East and marked a historic advance toward peace, security and regional stability,” it said.

The description of the region as having experienced a historic advance toward peace will raise eyebrows in many parts of the Middle East.

IN NUMBERS:

• 142 Individuals and organizations have received the prize since 1901.

• 19 Women have been awarded.

• 28 Organizations received the award.

• 19 Years the prize was not awarded.

(Source: NobelPrize.org)

Yet the strange circumstances of an alleged war criminal acting as a peace prize nominator has parallels with the Nobel name’s own peculiar past.

The prizes were established through the will of Alfred Nobel, a Swedish chemist, inventor and industrialist who amassed a fortune after inventing and patenting dynamite. The explosive was rapidly adopted for industrial use but was also soon prized for its utility as a tool of warfare.

The first awards bearing the Nobel name were handed out just after the turn of the century in 1901, five years after the Swedish visionary had died.




Alfred Nobel built an explosives empire and left much of his fortune to fund the Nobel Prizes. (Getty Images)

They cover medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace. An economics prize was later established by the Swedish Central Bank in 1968, but it is not considered a Nobel prize in the same manner.

Nobel’s wishes were for the peace prize to go 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.”

The strict codification of Nobel’s will resulted in the Nobel Statutes, a set of rules followed by the Nobel Foundation, which oversees the secretive process behind the five prizes. Judges are forbidden from discussing their deliberations for half a century after they take place.

The peace committee is the sole Nobel prize body in Norway, and its five members are appointed by the country’s parliament.

Nominations for the revered prize can only be submitted by specific people and organizations, including heads of state, national politicians, academic professors and company directors, among others. It is forbidden for people to nominate themselves.

Prominent Arab politicians have been awarded the peace prize.

Yasser Arafat was given the award in 1994 for his efforts toward reaching a peaceful settlement to the Israel-Palestine conflict. In 1978, Egypt’s Anwar Sadat was recognized for signing the Camp David Accords, which were witnessed by Jimmy Carter, the US president at the time, who was later awarded the prize in 2002 for his work to promote human rights after leaving office.

For Trump, however, hopes for his long-desired prize will have to wait until next year; nominations must be submitted before February for the prize to be awarded in the same year.

At the time of publishing, the Nobel Committee had not commented on Netanyahu’s nomination, whether they had any reservations, or whether they would accept it.


Three arrested after appeals court ruling on UK migrant hotel

Three arrested after appeals court ruling on UK migrant hotel
Updated 5 sec ago

Three arrested after appeals court ruling on UK migrant hotel

Three arrested after appeals court ruling on UK migrant hotel

LONDON: Three men were arrested after two police officers suffered minor injuries during a protest outside a UK hotel used to house asylum seekers, police said Saturday.
The new protests, the latest episode in a bitter national debate over immigration policy, came after an appeals court on Friday overturned a lower-court decision temporarily blocking the use of the protest-hit hotel at Epping, northeast of London, to house asylum-seekers.
“The overwhelming majority of people in Epping tonight clearly wanted their voices to be heard and they did that safely and without the need for a police response,” said Assistant Chief Constable Glen Pavelin of Essex police.
“However, the right to protest does not include a right to commit crime and tonight a small number of people were arrested. Two officers sustained injuries which are thankfully not serious,” he added.
The case came after a resident at the Bell Hotel was charged with sexually assaulting a local girl, sparking weeks of protests that have at times turned violent.
The protests in Epping have spread to other parts of Britain, amid growing frustration at the continued arrival of small boats packed with migrants across the English Channel from France.
More than 50,000 migrants have made the dangerous crossing since the Labour Party’s Keir Starmer became prime minister in July 2024.
The three arrested men remained in custody, Essex police said.


One dead, five injured as car slams into crowd in France: prosecutors

One dead, five injured as car slams into crowd in France: prosecutors
Updated 41 min 53 sec ago

One dead, five injured as car slams into crowd in France: prosecutors

One dead, five injured as car slams into crowd in France: prosecutors

ROUEN, France: A car slammed into a crowd in the town of Evreux in northern France early Saturday, killing one person and injuring five others, prosecutors told AFP.
After an altercation at a wine bar, “a person allegedly went to fetch a vehicle” and “deliberately reversed at high speed into a crowd outside the establishment,” prosecutor Remi Coutin said, adding that two people were in critical condition.


EU top diplomat ‘not optimistic’ on sanctioning Israel

EU top diplomat ‘not optimistic’ on sanctioning Israel
Updated 38 min 50 sec ago

EU top diplomat ‘not optimistic’ on sanctioning Israel

EU top diplomat ‘not optimistic’ on sanctioning Israel
  • EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas: ‘I’m not very optimistic, and today we are definitely not going to adopt decisions’

COPENHAGEN: EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Saturday she was “not optimistic” the bloc would take action against Israel over the war in Gaza due to splits between member states.
Foreign ministers meeting in Denmark will discuss a proposal to suspend EU funding to Israeli start-ups as initial punishment for the situation in Gaza.
But the bloc has so far failed to garner the majority needed to take that step — let alone move ahead with more forceful measures against Israel.
“I’m not very optimistic, and today we are definitely not going to adopt decisions,” Kallas told journalists at the start of the Denmark meeting.
“It sends a signal that we are divided.”
Splits within the European Union between countries backing Israel and those favoring the Palestinians have seen the 27-nation bloc often left hamstrung in the face of the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
A string of EU countries are pushing for more far-reaching punishment for Israel, but have been frustrated.
Denmark’s foreign minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency, insisted the bloc “must change words into action.”
He said Copenhagen backed suspending trade cooperation with Israel, sanctioning far-right Israeli ministers, and banning imports from illegal settlements.
Israel is facing pressure at home and abroad to end its offensive in Gaza, where the vast majority of the population has been displaced at least once and the United Nations has declared a famine.
The war in Gaza began after Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 63,025 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Gaza that the UN considers reliable.


Floods, landslides kill at least 11 in India’s Jammu region

Floods, landslides kill at least 11 in India’s Jammu region
Updated 30 August 2025

Floods, landslides kill at least 11 in India’s Jammu region

Floods, landslides kill at least 11 in India’s Jammu region
  • An intense monsoon rainstorm in the Indian-administered territory since Tuesday has caused widespread chaos
  • Floods and landslides are common during the June-September monsoon season

SRINAGAR, India: Floods and landslides triggered by record-breaking rain killed at least 11 people, including four children, in India’s Jammu and Kashmir, officials said Saturday.
An intense monsoon rainstorm in the Indian-administered territory since Tuesday has caused widespread chaos, with raging water smashing into bridges and swamping homes.
A local disaster official said that Ramban and Reasi districts were hit by heavy rainfall and landslides on Friday night, killing 11 people.
One child aged five was trapped in the debris and still missing, he added.
On Wednesday, a landslide slammed the pilgrimage route to the Hindu shrine of Vaishno Devi in Jammu, killing 41 people.
India’s Meteorological Department said the torrential rain had smashed records at two locations in the region.
Jammu and Udhampur recorded their highest 24-hour rainfall on Wednesday, with 296 millimeters (11.6 inches) in Jammu, nine percent higher than the 1973 record, and 629.4 mm (24.8 inches) in Udhampur – a staggering 84 percent surge over the 2019 mark.
Floods and landslides are common during the June-September monsoon season, but experts say climate change, coupled with poorly planned development, is increasing their frequency, severity and impact.
Climate experts from the Himalayan-focused International Center for Integrated Mountain Development warn that a spate of disasters illustrates the dangers when extreme rain combines with mountain slopes weakened by melting permafrost, as well as building developments in flood-prone valleys.
Powerful torrents driven by intense rain smashed into Chisoti village in Indian-administered Kashmir on August 14, killing at least 65 people and leaving another 33 missing.
Floods on August 5 overwhelmed the Himalayan town of Dharali in India’s Uttarakhand state and buried it in mud. The likely death toll from that disaster is more than 70 but has not been confirmed.


Thailand power vacuum will ‘not affect’ border security: defense ministry

Thailand power vacuum will ‘not affect’ border security: defense ministry
Updated 30 August 2025

Thailand power vacuum will ‘not affect’ border security: defense ministry

Thailand power vacuum will ‘not affect’ border security: defense ministry
  • Constitutional Court sacked prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra over her handling of a border row with Cambodia

BANGKOK: Thailand’s lack of a formal government will not affect border security with Cambodia, the defense ministry said Saturday, as the kingdom scrambles to fill a power vacuum following the dismissal of the prime minister by the Constitutional Court.
The Southeast Asian nation was thrown into political turmoil on Friday when the court sacked prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra over her handling of a border row with Cambodia, saying she had “not upheld the ethical code of conduct.”
The ruling has left Thailand with an acting prime minister, Phumtham Wechayachai, and a caretaker cabinet which will stay on until a new government is formed as early as next week.
On Saturday morning the acting cabinet held a special meeting confirming the arrangement, with no new major announcements.
Deputy Defense Minister Natthapon Nakpanich said having an acting government would “not affect” the country’s ability to safeguard its sovereignty amid a fragile ceasefire at the border with Cambodia.
“It’s not a problem. The army chief has already assigned responsibilities to handle specific situations,” he told reporters.
Paetongtarn, daughter of billionaire ex-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, was suspended from office last month after being accused of failing to stand up for Thailand in a June call with powerful former Cambodian leader Hun Sen, which was leaked online.
In July, tensions between Thailand and Cambodia spiralled into the two sides’ deadliest military clashes in decades, with more than 40 people killed and 300,000 forced to flee their homes along the border.
Thailand and Cambodia’s leaders agreed to an “unconditional” ceasefire at the end of July, after five days of combat along their jungle-clad frontier.
A nine-judge panel in the Constitutional Court ruled by six to three on Friday that Paetongtarn had not upheld the ethical standards required of a prime minister and removed her from office.
The ruling, which also dissolved her cabinet, came a year after the same court ousted her predecessor as prime minister, Srettha Thavisin, in an unrelated ethics case.
Paetongtarn was the sixth prime minister from the political movement founded by her father to face judgment by the Constitutional Court.
Parliament will vote on a new prime minister perhaps as early as next week, but there is no obvious replacement for Paetongtarn waiting to take over.
Parties have been eager to meet and strategise ways to secure a majority vote in parliament for their own candidates.
Under the constitution, only candidates nominated for prime minister at the last general election in 2023 are eligible.
Four of those names are out of the running, three of whom are banned by court order and one whose party failed to get enough MPs elected to qualify.
The remaining four include Prayut Chan-O-Cha, an ex-general who led a 2014 coup and served as prime minister until 2023, and Anutin Charnvirakul, leader of the Bhumjaithai party which was a former partner in Paetongtarn’s coalition government.