Giving the Nobel Peace Prize to Israel-hater Navi Pillay makes a mockery of the award and only fuels the global campaign to delegitimize the Jewish state. The Nobel Committee’s decision to announce the award in the midst of memorials to Oct. 7 massacre victims was an added stab in the back.
Alfred Nobel, for whom the Nobel Prize is named, said the Nobel Peace Prize should be given to those who have done the “most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” Pillay has done none of these things. In fact, she has no experience as a peacemaker.
Pillay is a lawyer who served as a judge on both the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (1995-2003) and the International Criminal Court (2003-2008). She was also the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (2008-2014) and chair of the U.N. Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory (2021-2025). She currently serves as an ad hoc judge on the International Court of Justice.
Pillay’s career includes a well-documented history of anti-Israel and antisemitic bias, as well as a history of applying human-rights advocacy selectively, spending a disproportionate amount of time criticizing the State of Israel while glossing over genuine human-rights offenders. Hardly an inspiring choice for the peace prize.
The Nobel Committee said they chose Pillay “for her efforts to promote peace and international law.” Really? She simply twisted international law to support her Israel-bashing agenda, most notably chairing the Commission of Inquiry (COI) that falsely accused Israel of genocide in Gaza—“the biggest lie of the 21st century”—as Israel’s Foreign Ministry appropriately describes it.
While it’s no surprise the Nobel Committee didn’t choose long-time prize aspirant Donald Trump for this year’s award, the case for the president is stronger than for Pillay. Unlike Pillay, at least Trump has actually contributed to world peace via the Abraham Accords.
Three issues should have disqualified Pillay from the Peace Prize:
1) Anti-Israel bias: She has accused Israel of apartheid, which she knows is an outrageous lie. Israel has no laws separating or discriminating against its citizens because of race, as was the case in apartheid South Africa.
Pillay also supports the hateful BDS movement, participation in which is illegal in many U.S. states. In 2020, for instance, she signed a petition organized by the South African BDS Coalition titled “Sanction Apartheid Israel!” which called for punitive measures including restrictions on military and security cooperation.
In 2009, Pillay endorsed the Goldstone Report, which accused the Israel Defense Forces of war crimes and crimes against humanity. In a Huffington Post op-ed titled, “The Vital Importance of Ending Impunity in Israel and Palestine,” she wrote, “I lend my full support to Justice Goldstone’s report and its recommendations.” The report’s evidence was later exposed as fraudulent, causing its main author, Justice Richard Goldstone, to disavow it. Pillay, however, has refused to repudiate the lies.
She saved her worst libel of Israel for last, when, in 2025, she chaired the COI that issued a report falsely accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza without verified facts.
2) Defending and enabling antisemitism. For example, in 2010, UN Watch wrote a letter to her, requesting the UNHRC remove antisemitic material from its website, which included the blood libel of Israel stealing Palestinians’ organs. The request was rejected.
In 2022, Pillay defended fellow COI member Miloon Kothari after he invoked the antisemitic trope of Jews controlling the media.
In 2025, her COI report that accused Israel of genocide even went so far as to say that the Jews had no historical rights in Judea and Samaria (aka, the West Bank), ignoring Jewish presence in their ancient biblical homeland for thousands of years until 1948, when Jordan ethnically cleansed it of all Jews.
3) Selective human-rights advocacy. For instance, a 2011 UN Watch study of her first two years as U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights found Pillay issued no country-specific statements on numerous authoritarian regimes, such as North Korea, Cuba and Syria, while roughly 43% of her statements on the Middle East and North Africa targeted Israel, the region’s only democracy.
Furthermore, on the day Pillay was announced the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, U.N. whistleblower Emma Reilly, who worked under her, claimed that under Pillay’s watch, the U.N. Human Rights Office handed the names of Uyghur and other dissidents to Chinese authorities (some later reportedly facing reprisals). Thus, though not yet proven, Pillay may herself be guilty of complicity in genocide.
Twisted international law to support anti-Israel agenda
She chaired the COI that published a report accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza, without proving intent as required by international law. Recently, Chris Sidoti, another member of the COI, admitted that the panel reported that Israel intended to commit “genocide” in Gaza despite never collecting direct evidence to prove it.
Sidoti also admitted that the COI’s thoroughly debunked claim that 83% of Gaza casualties were non-combatants, which the panel used to accuse Israel of “deliberately” killing civilians, was not independently verified.
Discredited the application of international law
Her attempt to distort the definition of genocide to suit her anti-Israel agenda severely sullied the reputation of the UNHRC, though to be fair, the United Nations already had a shameful reputation. One primary reason is that since it was created in 2006, it has passed more resolutions against Israel than all other countries combined.
In fact, the Trump administration cited the world body’s anti-Israel obsession as a reason for withdrawing from it last year. Trump has also sanctioned the ICC, which he and his officials appropriately described as “corrupt and fatally politicized,” as it frequently targets both Israel and the United States instead of the real criminals.
Navi Pillay has done nothing to promote peace. Yet disgracefully, the Nobel Committee gave her the Peace Prize for doing just that. It would seem that not only is slandering Israel increasingly popular, it can also earn you one of the world’s formerly most distinguished awards.
Originally published on Facts and Logic About the Middle East (FLAME).
