At first, I honestly thought it was a sick joke.
It’s hard to imagine something more dystopian: A leader engaged in what many consider a genocide nominating one of the leaders supporting it for an award that recognises a commitment to global peace.
But – bafflingly – it’s true.
At the White House yesterday, Benjamin Netanyahu revealed that he’d nominated Donald Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize.
And it came on the day that Israel’s defence minister unveiled plans to force the entire remaining population of Gaza to live in a camp on the ruins of Rafah.
The main architects of this bloody dystopian plan, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, should be global pariahs, not talking about Nobel Peace Prizes with smiles on their faces at a fancy dinner table in the heart of western democracy.
It’s hard to overstate how unsuitable someone like the current US President is for a reward designed to celebrate those who have worked tirelessly to establish and maintain peace.
This is a president who has presided over chaos and atrocity both domestically and globally.
He has spearheaded a cruel assault on migrants – ordering authorities to carry out the ‘single largest mass deportation programme in history’.
Just last week, Trump gave his approval to the Alligator Alcatraz detention centre in Florida (which has been likened to a concentration camp) designed to hold thousands of migrants in the midst of dangerous infested swamps – even celebrating the fact that the facility is guarded by ‘cops in the form of alligators’.
He is the only US president to have been impeached twice – and let us not forget what happened when he encouraged his supporters to disregard the democratic outcome of the 2020 election.
In the international arena, Trump has blamed Ukraine for being invaded by Russia, and praised Putin.
Does a leader who just last month almost ignited World War III by bombing Iran really deserve to receive the globe’s most prestigious peace prize?
And is a leader who still rains death and destruction down on Gaza really the best person to be nominating him?
Who has previously won the Nobel Peace Prize?
Famous winners of the Nobel Peace Prize include Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Marie Curie and Malala Yousafzai.
Above all this, it is the ongoing slaughter in Gaza, which has claimed over 55,000 lives – and both Netanyahu and Trump’s primary roles in this campaign against the Palestinian people – that makes this nomination something more sinister than mere satire.
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Netanyahu’s very public nomination wasn’t just political theatre, it was an insidious show of power: A message to the world that Israel and America can flout international law, preside over the massacre tens of thousands of Palestinians and obliterate most of an entire section of the map with complete impunity – even having the audacity to call themselves peacemakers in the process.
Of course, a US president standing with Israel is nothing new. Israel has long been the largest recipient of US aid, receiving hundreds of billions of dollars since the state was founded in 1948, much to the consternation of some everyday Americans who can’t afford homes or healthcare.
But Trump has done more than just write cheques.
His administration has clamped down on pro-Palestine campus protests within American universities, sought to deport overseas students who have vocally advocated for Palestine and punished institutions that allowed protests to go ahead.
Trump’s designs for Palestine have nothing to do with peace.
In February, Trump shared an AI generated video of Gaza cleared of Palestinians, and turned into a luxury seafront resort, filled with western tourists sipping cocktails, bellydancers performing on the beach and money raining from the sky as he sunbathed with Netanyahu.
Trump’s post went beyond his usual trolling. It was a blueprint for ethnic cleansing. From the man now being nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Of course, this isn’t all about Trump.
Netanyahu is actively engaged in what both the UN and Amnesty International has deemed a genocide. There is an International Criminal Court warrant for his arrest for alleged war crimes.
Under Netanyahu’s orders, Gazans are dying of hunger because of the blockade on aid. Israeli forces have shot, killing and injuring, already starving Palestinians queuing for food.
Despite protestations from Israel that they are targeting the Hamas agents who perpetrated the horrors of October 7, in reality this is a sustained campaign of assault against a civilian population, half of whom are under 18.
Around 70% of the dead in Gaza are reported to be women and children.
What we are witnessing in Gaza is beyond unconscionable.
It is a stain on our collective morality as a world that we are watching a genocide being live-streamed through our screens via social media, while our leaders not only fund and support it, but penalise and criminalise those who stand against these crimes.
If anyone deserves a Nobel Peace Prize, it’s those willing to risk everything to hold our complicit leaders to account.
Until then, Trump and Netanyahu’s sick joke won’t leave anyone laughing.
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