Jerusalem, 9 October, 2026 (TPS-IL) — Israel on Friday condemned the decision to award South African jurist Navi Pillay the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize, accusing the Norwegian Nobel Committee of legitimizing what Israel describes as a false genocide accusation against the country.
The Foreign Ministry said the award had turned a prestigious international honor into a vehicle for political hostility toward Israel.
“If there were an award for lies, hatred, and blood libels, Navi Pillay wouldn’t just be a contender. She’d be a frontrunner,” the ministry said in a statement posted on X.
“Awarding Pillay the Nobel Peace Prize isn’t a recognition of justice. It’s the grotesque weaponization of an award to legitimize anti-Israel hatred and prejudice,” the statement continued.
The ministry also invoked Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, saying he would be applauding from hell after the committee rewarded what it called “the biggest lie of the 21st century.”
Prof. Gerald M. Steinberg, founder and president of the Israeli research organization NGO Monitor, also criticized the decision, calling it “one more obscene step in the madness.” Steinberg compared honoring Pillay to awarding a peace prize to Tomás de Torquemada, the notorious leader of the Spanish Inquisition, and questioned who might receive the prize next.
Much of the criticism centers on Pillay’s role as chair of a United Nations commission of inquiry that concluded Israel had committed genocide in the Gaza Strip. A [September 2025 report](https://articles.tps.co.il/article/321833) by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory cited alleged violations of the Genocide Convention. Israel has rejected the commission’s conclusion.
The Nobel Committee said the prize recognized Pillay’s efforts to promote peace and international law. Its decision has drawn criticism in Israel because of her role in the commission and her repeated accusations against the country.
Pillay, 85, has also accused Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity, opposed Israeli policies in Judea and Samaria, and supported calls for sanctions, an arms embargo, and a boycott of products from Israeli communities there.
Her criticism of Israeli policy predates the current war. In 2022, she described “the occupation” as “the root of the problem,” arguing that it must end. During the 2014 Gaza war, she warned that Israeli shelling of United Nations schools where civilians had sought shelter could constitute war crimes.
Pillay served as United Nations high commissioner for human rights from 2008 to 2014. Her career in international justice also included service as a judge on South Africa’s High Court and as president of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
Pillay has also condemned Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, acknowledging that the terrorist organization committed war crimes, including the killing of civilians and hostage-taking.
The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by a committee appointed by Norway’s parliament and presented in Oslo, while the other Nobel Prizes are awarded in Sweden.
In 1978, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat shared the Nobel Peace Prize for the Camp David Accords. More controversially, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat shared the prize for the Oslo Accords in 1994.
Pillay is scheduled to receive the award in Oslo on December 10.
