Jared Kushner, senior adviser to former U.S. President Donald Trump, and his deputy Avi Berkowitz were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize on Sunday for their role in the normalization deals between Israel and several Arab states known as the Abraham Accords.
The two former officials were nominated by U.S. attorney Alan Dershowitz, who was eligible to do so in his capacity as professor emeritus of Harvard Law School. In his nomination, Dershowitz noted that while the choice might not be popular, the peace deals between Israelis and Arabs speak for themselves.
“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,” he wrote.
In his letter, Dershowitz also cited the work of former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and former Israeli ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer for their roles in negotiating the deals.
In a four-month span last year, Israel signed normalization deals with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. They were the first such measures signed between Israel and Muslim-majority countries in decades.
