Newsweek: Will Netanyahu be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize?

“It’s true that it was given to Mother Teresa and later to Obama, but neither one brought peace. Netanyahu brought peace, and is bringing more of the same,” said Nobel laureate Robert Aumann.

By Josh Plank, World Israel News

Newsweek has announced that its October 2 issue will feature the cover story, “The Netanyahu Dilemma,” asking, “Can the Nobel Prize say no to Bibi?”

“The inconceivable may become the almost-inevitable,” wrote Tom O’Connor, Newsweek‘s senior writer of foreign policy, in the cover story which has already been published on the magazine’s website.

The story cites the two historic agreements that Israel has forged with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain as the basis for a possible Nobel Prize, adding, “By the time the Nobel Committee makes its choices next fall, it’s possible that Israel may have achieved a deal with Saudi Arabia as well.”

Netanyahu has been nominated by at least two members of national government assemblies: Paolo Grimoldi of Italy and Vilhelm Junnila of Finland.

In a September 15 letter to the Nobel Committee, Junnila called the Abraham Accords the “most significant approach to peace in the region in over 25 years” and urged the committee to give the matter “a serious and impartial consideration.”

However, not everyone agrees that Netanyahu deserves the prize.

Daniel Kurtzer, who has served as U.S. ambassador to both Egypt and Israel, told Newsweek that “this does not rise to the level of deserving a Nobel Prize, which should be reserved for when an Israeli Prime Minister makes peace with the Palestinians.”

Diana Buttu, a former Palestine Liberation Organization spokesperson, said, “The fact that these two Arab states are going along with it is far from being an indication of us moving along the path of peace, but rather creating a new order in which we see that war criminals are being rewarded and that war crimes are being rewarded.”

Hebrew University’s Robert Aumann, winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, told Newsweek, “The Peace Prize is for peace, not for being a nice guy.”

“It’s true that it was given to Mother Teresa and later to Obama, but neither one brought peace. Netanyahu brought peace, and is bringing more of the same,” he said.

If selected, Netanyahu would become the third Israeli prime minister to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1994, the prize was awarded jointly to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Foreign Affairs Minister Shimon Peres, and Palestine Liberation Organization head Yasser Arafat for forging the Oslo Accords.

In 1978, Prime Minister Menachem Begin shared the prize with Egypt’s President Anwar el-Sadat for the peace treaty concluded between Israel and Egypt.

President Donald Trump has also been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in brokering the Abraham Accords.