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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has nominated President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.
While visiting the White House on Monday, July 7, Netanyahu, 75, presented Trump, 79, with a letter nominating Trump for the coveted honor — which, per the will of prize namesake Alfred Nobel, should go to the person “who has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment and promotion of peace congresses,” according to Reuters.
The following day, the prime minister’s office officially released the letter in full. Dated Tuesday, July 1, and addressed to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, the body responsible for awarding the prize, Netanyahu’s letter opened, “I wish to submit the nomination of the Honorable Donald J. Trump, 45th and 47th President of the United States of America, for the Nobel Peace Prize.”
The president, Netanyahu continued in the letter, “has demonstrated steadfast and exceptional dedication to promoting peace, security and stability around the world. In the Middle East, his efforts have brought about dramatic change and created new opportunities to expand the circle of peace and normalization.”
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The Israeli leader went on to cite Trump’s “pivotal role” in the Abraham Accords — a series of agreements announced in September 2020 that worked to establish diplomatic relations between Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain. The accords also marked the countries’ abandonment of the long-held condition that relations with Israel had to follow the establishment of a Palestinian state, per The New York Times.
“These breakthroughs reshaped the Middle East and marked a historic advance toward peace, security and regional stability,” Netanyahu wrote of the 2020 agreements. “President Trump’s vision and bold leadership promoted innovative diplomacy defined not by conflict and extremism but by cooperation, dialogue and shared prosperity.”
“Few leaders have achieved such tangible breakthroughs to peace in such a short time,” the prime minister continued. “In these times of great historic change, I can think of no one more deserving than President Trump of the Nobel Peace Prize.”
As Netanyahu presented Trump with a copy of the letter in person in Washington, D.C. on July 7, he also praised the U.S. president for “forging peace, as we speak, in one country in the region after another,” according to theTimes.
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Netanyahu’s nomination letter comes months after Trump openly claimed the Nobel Committee would “never” award him with the coveted honor.
During his February White House meeting with the Israeli leader, the president told reporters, “They will never give me a Nobel Peace Prize,” per USA Today. “It’s too bad, I deserve it, but they will never give it to me.”
Trump was repeatedly (and unsuccessfully) nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize during his first term in the Oval Office, and more recently.
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Christian Tybring-Gjedde, a member of the Norwegian parliament, first nominated Trump for the coveted prize in 2018, following the president’s Singapore meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
He later nominated the president for a second time in 2020, citing his work in normalizing relations between Israel and the UAE. Trump did not win either year.
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More recently, two Republican lawmakers, Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno and Georgia Rep. Buddy Carter, argued in June that Trump should be nominated for a prize, according to USA Today. Moreno nominated Trump for the honor for his authorization of the U.S. military’s strikes on Iran, while Carter nominated him for the Iran-Israel ceasefire that the president claimed had been reached.
Should Trump win the honor this year, he would become the the fifth U.S. president with a Nobel Peace Prize, per Reuters. Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson have all received the honor.
