President Donald Trump, following his important role in securing a treaty between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Christian Tybring-Gjedde, a member of the Parliament (the Storting) of Norway, made the nomination Wednesday, noting, “For his merit, I think he has done more trying to create peace between nations than most other Peace Prize nominees.”
While other Nobel prizes are awarded in Sweden, Norway controls the process of nominating and awarding of the peace prize. The prizes — also awarded in chemistry, literature, physics, and medicine — were first awarded in 1901, with winners receiving a gold medal, a diploma, and a prize of nearly $1 million. Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, and the holder of 355 patents, willed his fortune to create the prizes.
Winners of the “peace prize” over the years have included the European Union, the International Panel on Climate Change and Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, the United Nations, Nelson Mandela and F. W. de Klerk, Mikhail Gorbachev, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, and Woodrow Wilson. Obviously, the winners have usually not been a bunch of “right-wingers.” In fact, in the case of Woodrow Wilson, his getting the Congress to declare war on Germany in 1917 probably kept World War I from ending in a draw, which would have probably precluded the rise of Adolf Hitler and World War II. One can certainly understand why Mother Teresa could have been lauded by the Nobel committee, but giving the award to Al Gore for his global-warming propaganda efforts is hardly doing anything for “world peace.”
Tybring-Gjedde stressed, “I’m not a big Trump supporter. The committee should look at the facts and judge him on the facts — not on the way he behaves sometimes. The people who have received the Peace Prize in recent years have done much less than Donald Trump. For example, Barack Obama did nothing.”
Obama was awarded the peace prize before he had even taken office in 2009. According to the Nobel committee, Obama was given the award for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” They added that Obama’s election had given the world “hope” for a better future.
Geir Lundestad, who chaired the committee in 2009 that gave Obama the prize, said in 2015 that he regretted having done so.
In his letter nominating Trump, Tybring-Gjedde cited the importance of the agreement between Israel and the UAE. “As it is expected other Middle Eastern countries will follow in the footsteps of the UAE, this agreement could be a game changer that will turn the Middle East into a region of cooperation and prosperity.” He credited Trump with playing a “key role in facilitating contact between conflicting parties and … creating new dynamics in other protracted conflicts, such as the Kashmir border dispute between India and Pakistan, and the conflict between North and South Korea, as well as dealing with the nuclear capabilities of North Korea.”
The deal between Israel and the UAE was brokered largely through the work of the Trump White House, and the two parties are expected to sign the deal at the White House on September 15.
Tybring-Gjedde also praised Trump for avoiding war so far during his tenure as president. “Indeed, Trump has broken a 39-year-old streak of American Presidents either starting a war or bringing the United States into an international armed conflict.” Tybring-Gjedde has previously nominated Trump in 2018, for his efforts to get North and South Korea to reconcile.
The prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, also nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Interestingly, in its article on Trybring-Gjedde’s nomination of Trump, the Associated Press (AP) spent almost as much time castigating the Norwegian’s opposition to his country’s immigration policies, which he considers far too lenient. He also has argued that immigrants into Norway should assimilate into Norwegian society. Any Norwegian lawmaker is entitled to offer nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize.
To be eligible for the 2020 Peace Prize, the nominations must have been made by February 1. Were Trump to win the Peace Prize, he would not actually be honored with it until 2021. Tybring-Gjedde told AP that Trump “meets the criteria” to win the prize, and, “No matter how Trump acts at home and what he says at press conferences,” he should “absolutely” have a chance to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
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Steve Byas is a university instructor in history and government and the author of History’s Greatest Libels. He may be contacted at [email protected].
