Navi Pillay has just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, for her work as at the UN Human Rights Commission and as a judge at the International Criminal Court. She has studied a real genocide — that in Rwanda, where the Hutus slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Tutsi men, women, and children. And she has also studied the war in Gaza, or claims to have done, which she concludes was a “genocide” that the IDF carried out. She is horribly wrong. But that didn’t stop the Norwegian committee from giving her this award.
Now many people who deserve the Nobel failed to get it. Think only of the writers who were eligible for, but never received, the Nobel in literature. I can name eighteen right off the top of my head: They include Mark Twain, Anton Chekhov, Leo Tolstoy, Thomas Hardy, Marcel Proust, Franz Kafka, Vladimir Nabokov, Vladislav Khodasevich, Robert Frost, W. H Auden, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Georges Perec, Alfonso Reyes, Jorge Luis Borges, Cees Nooteboom, Italo Svevo, Primo Levi, and Italo Calvino.
And then think of those who did receive a Nobel Peace Prize who most certainly did not deserve it. Yasir Arafat, Barack Obama, Le Duc Tho, and Henry Kissinger all come swimmingly to mind. To this list of unworthies we must now add the name of Navi Pillay.
For Navi Pillay is best known for adding her loud voice to the anti-Israel choir. She accuses Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza. The Israelis have furiously responded to the announcement of her award, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling it a “grotesque weaponization” of the prize, now being one more stick with which to beat the embattled Jewish state.
More on Navi Pillay can be found here: “South Africa’s Navanethem ‘Navi’ Pillay, who accused Israel of genocide in Gaza, wins Nobel Prize,” Reuters, October 9, 2026:
South African judge Navanethem “Navi” Pillay won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday “for her efforts to promote peace and international law,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said.
In September last year, Pillay oversaw the publishing of a report by the UN Commission of Inquiry that concluded that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza and that top Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, incited these acts — accusations that Israel called scandalous.
Navanethem also served as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 until 2014.
Pillay held states and national leaders accountable and brought hope to victims of violence and conflict, and demonstrated a firm moral compass in her long career, the Norwegian Nobel Committee added.
“A common thread runs from her early work defending Nelson Mandela and others who stood up against apartheid to her service as a judge in some of the key international court cases of our time,” the committee said….
“This is an important recognition of the vital role that international justice plays as a cornerstone of lasting peace,” ICC President Tomoko Akane said. “At a time of profound challenges to the international legal order and the rule of law, this recognition carries particular significance.”
Israelis are, of course, furious at this award to someone who has been attacking Israel for the past decade. The Israeli foreign ministry released a statement describing the prize as “the grotesque weaponization of an award to legitimize anti-Israel hatred and prejudice,” adding that if there were an award for “lies, hatred, and blood libels, Navi Pillay wouldn’t just be a contender. She’d be a frontrunner.”
Pillay’s critics include groups such as the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). They have highlighted Pillay’s past public stances, noting that she compared Israel to apartheid South Africa in 2017, endorsed the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, and backed calls for sanctions and arms embargoes against Israel. Critics also cite her defense of the UN’s 2001 and 2009 Durban anti-racism conferences, which faced Western boycotts over allegations of antisemitism.
When Pillay accuses Israel of apartheid just like that which once prevailed in her native South Africa, as she has done for years, she is choosing to ignore reality. In Israel, Arabs serve on the Supreme Court, serve in the Knesset, are directors of major businesses (including recently Israel’s largest bank, Bank Leumi). Jews and Arabs play on the same sports teams and in the same orchestras, work in the same offices, farms, and factories. Jews and Arabs own businesses together, everything from restaurants to high tech companies. The only difference in the treatment of Jews and Arabs is this: Jews must, while Arabs may, serve in the military. Surely Pillay knows all this. But why should reality matter when lies serve a higher cause: the destruction of the single Jewish state and its replacement by a 23rd Arab state?
She not only supports the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement, but in 2020, she signed declarations calling for sanctions and an arms embargo against Israel. She has a long and ignoble history as an Israel-hater. She wants an arms embargo against Israel, which if it were to come to pass would ensure Israel’s defeat in a multi-front war and the dismemberment of the country.
Donald Breyer says
A reminder that Norway has never renounced it’s Nazi past. Now it is celebrating it.
somehistory says
Instead of “Nobel,” it should be Unworthy of Praise, prize. Along with this, the ghouls get money.
“Woe to those putting evil for good, bitter for sweet and darkness for light.” If one tells enough lies, and works for the furtherance of evil, they get *rewarded,* which shows the state of the world of mankind.
Namer says
Once again Nobel is rolling in his grave,
John Smith says
No surprise here. When the UN votes on resolutions concerning Israel, the overwhelming majority always vote against Israel. Israel has few friends in the UN, fortunately the US is one.
Rick Gordon says
Her award is an embarrassment for the Nobel Prize committee and humanity. It severely diminishes the integrity of its scientific awards.