Awarding the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize to South African judge Navanethem “Navi” Pillay has drawn sharp criticism from both Israel and the US.
Pillay was given the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize “for her efforts to promote peace and international law,” according to the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
She previously served as a UN high commissioner for human rights and as a judge at the International Criminal Court, and later chaired a UN commission of inquiry concerning Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Nobel Committee’s decision draws sharp criticism
The Norwegian Nobel Committee noted that this body, officially called the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including east Jerusalem, has drawn sharp criticism from Israel.
As part of this commission, Pillay’s report found that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza and that top Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, incited these acts.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay. (credit: REUTERS)
The Norwegian Nobel Committee said that she held states and national leaders accountable, brought hope to victims of violence and conflict, and demonstrated a firm moral compass throughout her long career.
“A common thread runs from her early work defending Nelson Mandela and others who stood up against apartheid to her service as a judge in some of the key international court cases of our time,” the committee said.
Netanyahu responded to the decision by calling Pillay a “bigot” and the prize committee “misguided.”
“The Nobel Prize committee has lost its moral compass,” the Prime Minister’s Office wrote on X/Twitter. “It has awarded its highest honor to a bigot who built her career around inventing and propagating blood libels against the only Jewish state.”
Pillay’s “proudest achievement was to legitimize a corrupt prosecutor who turned to her fabrications against Israel, hoping that by joining her bigoted lynch mob, [ICC prosecutor Karim Khan] would beat a rape charge,” the post went on to say.
“Khan, who his own ICC employees accused of raping and sexually molesting them, used Pillay’s lies to build a fake case against Israel,” the Prime Minister’s Office continued.
“Now, the misguided members of the Nobel committee are honoring the woman who propagated this demonization of the Jews and this travesty of justice,” it said.
Israel accuses Pillay of promoting hatred and lies
The Foreign Ministry also condemned the decision, accusing Pillay of promoting lies, hatred, and blood libels against Israel.
“If there were an award for lies, hatred, and blood libels, Navi Pillay wouldn’t just be a contender. She’d be a front-runner,” the ministry said, describing her report findings as part of a politically motivated campaign to demonize the Jewish state.
Further, the Foreign Ministry rejected Pillay’s genocide allegations, calling them “the biggest lie of the 21st century,” adding, “[Nazi propagandist] Joseph Goebbels is certainly applauding from hell.”
US President Donald Trump listens to a reporters question in the Oval Office at the White House on September 28, 2026; illustrative (credit: KEVIN DIETSCH/GETTY IMAGES)Trump responds:’I’ve never heard of that person’
US President Donald Trump slammed the Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday in remarks of his own, saying that the prize should have gone to the US, and effectively, to him.
“Despite … [America’s] unbelievable accomplishments, the Nobel Prize was given out today to a liberal person who works at the United Nations, who nobody has ever heard of. I’ve never heard of that person,” Trump said during a campaign rally in Syracuse, New York.
“I know a lot of people. I’ve never heard of this particular person, but congratulations anyway,” he added.Trump then said that the UN had played no role in the conflicts he helped resolve.
“In all of the wars that I have settled, I never spoke to the United Nations. They were of no help to me,” Trump said. “The United States of America, represented by me as your president, should have received the Nobel Peace Prize, but didn’t.”
Norway, where the Nobel Peace Prize committee is based, was also mentioned in the US president’s remarks on the subject.
“This is an indelible stain on the country of Norway and those people who made such a disgraceful and embarrassing decision,” Trump said.
“The Nobel Peace Prize has been forever discredited by a handful of radical ideologues who are anti-democracy and really, enemies of civilization. And we will not forget Norway,” he said.
US imposes sanctions on ICC
Hours after the Nobel announcement, Trump’s administration imposed sanctions on the ICC on Friday, putting Washington on a diplomatic collision course with European allies. ICC Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan condemned the sanctions, saying they would not halt the tribunal’s work.
The Trump administration has long been hostile toward the court founded in 2002 to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. In the past, the Trump administration has imposed sanctions on ICC prosecutors and judges. Friday’s move would go far further, by potentially punishing companies that provide services to the court itself.
“President Trump will never allow the International Criminal Court to prosecute Americans,” US State Secretary Marco Rubio said in a statement, first published by Reuters.
“That is why, today, the United States is sanctioning the International Criminal Court. We will ban transactions with this rogue court, cutting off its resources and crippling its ability to operate,” Rubio said.
The ICC deputy prosecutor told Reuters the sanctions “must be condemned.”
“The sanctions are intended to undermine the rule of law internationally and the work that an independent judicial institution is doing,” Khan said. “Our work will continue across all our situations, our investigations, and our prosecutions.”
The sanctions are “an attempt to obstruct the course of justice and to prevent the court from doing what it was created to do,” the ICC said in a statement.
“It is an assault on the rule of law and on the very foundations of the international legal order which strikes at the simple principle that no one stands above the law,” it said.
“The designation is aimed at disrupting the court’s operations and at intimidating those who work for or cooperate with the court. The court, for its part, will not be deterred … Yet the court cannot stand alone. Its fate now rests also in the hands of the states that created it,” the ICC continued.
Washington has denounced the ICC over arrest warrants issued for Israeli officials including Netanyahu, and a past investigation into actions of US soldiers in Afghanistan, which the ICC has since closed.
Netanyahu also commended Trump and Rubio for taking the “critical decision” to impose the sanctions in a post on X on Friday.
“The ICC is not a court,” he said. “It is a political body that poses a mortal threat to law-abiding democracies worldwide and to the very idea of national sovereignty. Thank you for your leadership.”