The Atlantic magazine blasted on Friday the nomination of US President Donald Trump for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for brokering a peace deal between the state of Israel and the United Arab Emirates as “preposterous”.
In its Friday article headed as "End the Nobel Peace Prize", the magazine called for the cancellation of the award, claiming that “the Trump nomination shows that peace had its chance, and blew it”.
On Wednesday, President Trump was nominated for the annual award by Norwegian lawmaker Christian Tybring-Gjedde for his role in reaching an Israeli-UAE deal, which is set to be signed at the White House on 15 September. In addition, the president was nominated by Swedish lawmaker Magnus Jacobsson, who cited Trump’s role in brokering an economic deal between Kosovo and Serbia.
“If Trump wins the prize, it will be the fourth Nobel awarded for peace between Israel and its neighbors”, Graeme Wood, Atlantic staff writer, arguing that “will make Arab-Israeli peace mediators more successful at charming the Nobel Committee than the International Committee of the Red Cross”, a three-time winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Wood said that the Nobel Committee “should revive” the tradition of awarding the prize “to no one at all” – Historically, the committee declined to award a peace prize 19 times. The author added that “the committee should take a long break to consider whether peace is a category coherent enough to be worth recognizing”.
The staff writer claimed that nominating Trump for the prize is “preposterous”, arguing that his “main diplomatic maneuver is to adopt a lickspittle posture toward authoritarians, promising them decades in power in return for a smile and a condo development. Peace does not mean a web of personal agreements between rich psychopaths”.
Earlier in the day, Swedish lawmaker Magnus Jacobsson announced that he had nominated the Trump administration for the peace award, along with the governments of Kosovo and Serbia for their “work for peace and economic development” after Trump brokered an economic deal between the two.
“I have nominated the US Gov. and the governments of Kosovo and Serbia for the Nobel Peace Prize for their joint work for peace and economic development, through the cooperation agreement signed in the White House”, Jacobsson said in a statement on Twitter Friday. “Trade and communications are important building blocks for peace”.
On 13 August, President Trump announced reaching a historic peace agreement between Israel and the UAE. The deal is set to be signed at the White House next Tuesday. On Thursday, the president said that another Arab country may join signing the UAE-Israel deal.
On Friday, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain announced officially agreeing to normalise relations with the state of Israel, following a trilateral phone conversation with US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.