Israel on Friday castigated the decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to South African jurist Navi Pillay, saying it legitimized “anti-Israel hatred and prejudice”.
Ms. Pillay last year led the independent United Nations International Commission of Inquiry into the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which does not speak on behalf of the UN, which had affirmed that Israel was committing “genocide” in the Gaza Strip.
Israel categorically rejected the report, calling it “biased and misleading” and accusing its authors of anti-Semitic bias.
A statement from the Israeli Foreign Ministry published on
“If there was a reward for lies, hatred and slander (…), Navi Pillay would not only be in the running. She would be in the lead,” the ministry further accused.
“This year’s laureate played a key role in ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are prosecuted,” Nobel committee chairman Jørgen Watne Frydnes said in his announcement.
In an interview with AFP, he said the committee was not “a court” and refused to rule on whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza as the commission chaired by the prize winner claimed.
In 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants, still unexecuted, against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, for its part, welcomed the awarding of the prize to Ms. Pillay, hailing it as proof of “the value of human rights in this world,” according to Shabia Mantoo, spokesperson for the High Commissioner, an organization that Ms. Pillay led from 2008 to 2014.
