A life devoted to antisemitism: The Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Navi Pillay, chair of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry that accused Israel of genocide in September 2025, could hardly have been more deserved.
Nothing is more “mainstream” than the Nobel Prize, more devoted to the supposed good of humanity. Only the truly respectable are admitted to its table. The prizes for science and medicine are different, but writers and politicians must wear a liberal badge bearing the word “peace,” even if they are terrorists, like Yasser Arafat; or “equality,” even if they have yet to accomplish anything, like Barack Obama; or at least display some sign of contempt for capitalism, like Dario Fo.
The idea is to provide a role model whom we are supposed to admire and follow. We are used to it, but this time it is difficult: The Nobel has gone to a woman who has made hatred of Israel, transformed into a U.N. institution, her banner.
Her supposed commitment to the human rights she was meant to defend is belied by her lukewarm attention to so many crucial causes—China, Russia, Iran. One recalls a trip she made to Syria during the period of Bashar Assad’s massacres that failed to elicit any significant reaction from her.
Navi Pillay now ascends to the pantheon of inspiration for humanity that the prize aspires to represent. U.S. President Donald Trump wanted it, and instead it has gone to one of his enemies. It is an old-fashioned sneer at the stereotype of imperial America, but above all it is ideological confirmation that the aspirations of decent people for human rights, peace and freedom have been transferred wholesale into Palestinianism.
Pillay is a South African jurist whose selection once again illustrates the failure of the bloated international establishment—a failure that here extends to common sense and knowledge of the facts.
Pillay institutionalized the accusation of genocide in parallel with the still-unresolved proceedings at the International Court of Justice, and that sums up her story. Beginning in 2008, as U.N. high commissioner for human rights, she traveled the entire ideological road of neo-antisemitism that seeks to erase Israel, one indication of which is the accusation of colonialism that she readily repeats.
In 2010, she backed the mission headed by Richard Goldstone, which produced a report criminalizing Israel on the basis of prejudicial testimony, in the manner of Amnesty International. Goldstone later repudiated its central conclusion. During the difficult years marked by terrorism, rocket attacks and war through 2014, her criticism was so one-sided that she went so far as to complain that Gaza had not been provided with Iron Dome.
Since 2017, she has been a prominent supporter of the BDS campaign and signed “Sanction Apartheid Israel!” Between 2017 and 2022, among other things, she expressed the hope that “the Palestinian struggle against colonization” would lead to “boycott, divestment and sanctions.”
From BDS to apartheid—the most ridiculous of accusations; one need only visit schools, malls, hospitals and courtrooms—she has called for the suspension of international relations with Israel. In 2021, she signed a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden denouncing “the oppression of the Palestinian people.” In July 2022, she defended a member of her commission, Miloon Kothari, after he lashed out at “the Jewish lobby.”
And yet her appointment went ahead despite objections from organizations such as NGO Monitor and UN Watch.
Her commission’s accusation of genocide came on Oct. 28, 2025. Just as disturbing as the award itself has been the satisfaction with which it has been greeted across much of the international press, television and political establishment. The reaction demonstrates precisely what Pillay’s career represents: the transfer into Palestinianism of the entire package of causes once associated with human rights, peace and freedom.
Now she is the queen of anti-Jewish hatred. One wonders how much Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories, envies her.
But no—the next prize will be hers.
