The 2009 award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama for approximately nothing was a joke, but it had already long since become a joke. In 2009 Obama was walking in the footsteps of Rigoberta Menchú Tum (1992) and Yasser Arafat (1994), among others.
For his facilitation of the peace agreement between Israel and the UAE, however, Donald Trump is actually deserving of the award as it is traditionally understood. He also deserves it for several other foreign policy actions he has taken, including his withdrawal of the United States from the JCPOA, but that’s another story.
Indeed, Trump has now been nominated for the peace prize by Christian Tybring-Gjedde, a bona fide member of the Norwegian Parliament, for his work on the Israel-UAE deal. With generous quotes from the letter of nomination, Jon Decker reports on it here for FOX News. By contrast with Obama, in my assessment, Trump would be following in the footsteps of Theodore Roosevelt (1906).
NOTE: Jay Nordlinger’s Peace, They Say: A History of the Nobel Peace Prize is my go-to source for the relevant background.
