Netanyahu is playing Trump with his ridiculous Nobel peace prize nomination
Mohamad Bazzi Thu 10 Jul 2025 12.00 EDTThere’s a cynical logic behind Netanyahu’s publicity stunt: he is exploiting Trump’s need for flattery to prolong Israel’s brutal war on Gaza
“Benjamin Netanyahu nominates Donald Trump for Nobel peace prize”– that headline seems to have been pulled straight out of the satirical news outlet the Onion. But it’s 100% real news: the Israeli prime minister who has been indicted by the international criminal court for alleged war crimes in Gaza has proposed the US president, his largest weapons supplier and strongest political backer, as a candidate for the world’s top peacemaking prize.
It’s absurd, akin to nominating one’s drug dealer for the Nobel prize in medicine. But there’s a cynical logic behind Netanyahu’s publicity stunt: he is exploiting Trump’s need for flattery to prolong Israel’s brutal war on Gaza and to continue attacking other countries in the Middle East, including Iran, Lebanon and Yemen. Before Netanyahu showed up for dinner at the White House on Monday with a copy of his Nobel nomination letter, Trump was eager to announce a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas this week.
Netanyahu is playing Trump with his ridiculous Nobel peace prize nomination | Mohamad Bazzi
There’s a cynical logic behind Netanyahu’s publicity stunt: he is exploiting Trump’s need for flattery to prolong Israel’s brutal war on Gaza
www.theguardian.com
It's ill-conceived to attribute here to a single cause or motive.
Let's be clear:
NETANYAHU:
On 21 November 2024, following an investigation of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for ...: Benjamin Netanyahu ... More from Wikipedia
TRUMP:
Has dozens of felony convictions, perhaps alarmingly, none of them related to Trump's January 6, 2021 violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Neither of these national leaders is a choir boy.
Despite numerous headlines that seem tangential to the essential reality here, it appears to me:
- Netanyahu offers cleverly worded justifications, but appears to be deliberately reducing Palestine to rubble, and also appears to be perpetrating deliberate genocide in the process.
We needn't read tea leaves to verify this. There are numerous independently corroborating reports including civilians seeking emergency food aid being slaughtered.
- Trump seems to be Netanyahu's pawn. It seems Netanyahu intends to continue his War against Hamas until Netanyahu is willing to stop.
And at that future time, Netanyahu seems not to mind the appearance that Trump, a bumbling incompetent at such negotiations, swoops in and heroically brings peace there.
It's cynical carnage where these two primaries chase the tail of the other, as yin chases yang.
President Obama got a Nobel Prize for not being the U.S. president that preceded Obama, President GWB.
Will Trump win for reason as bad or worse?