The Nobel Prize Committee awarded South African Indian Navanethem aka Navi Pillay the Nobel Peace Prize for 2026. She served as UN high commissioner for refugees, was a jurist on the International Criminal Court and has special guest-judge status on the UN’s International Court of Justice.

Israel National News wrote the following:

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in Oslo on Friday to South African jurist Navi Pillay, known for her anti-Israel positions. Pillay served as the UN’s fifth High Commissioner for Human Rights and held senior positions in the international judicial system over the course of her career.

Pillay also served as president of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and as a judge at the International Criminal Court. She is known in Israel for her radical positions against the Jewish state.

In the past she has accused Israel of committing “war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity” in Gaza, as she put it.

The criteria for the prize state that it should be awarded to a person who has done the most or the best to promote fraternity among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the establishment and advancement of peace conferences.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry issued a fierce reaction to Pillay’s nomination for the prize, saying that “if there were an award for lies, hatred and blood libels,” she “wouldn’t just be a contender. She’d be a frontrunner.”

According to the Foreign Ministry, Pillay’s role in the “relentless, politically motivated demonization of Israel and promotion of the ‘genoLIE’ speaks volumes.”

The Ministry stated that 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 concludes with especially harsh criticism: “Now that the Nobel commission has rewarded the biggest lie of the 21st century, Joseph Goebbels is certainly applauding from hell.”

Full text here.

The BBC posted the following on Pillay:

Referring to the report on Gaza she recently completed, she says: “The last thing I did is the delivery of the report on Gaza, naming what’s happening there as genocide.”

From 2021-25, Pillay chaired the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, a body established by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate alleged violations of international law.

In 2025 the commission, a fact-finding body with no legal authority, concluded that Israel had committed genocidal acts in Gaza and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defence minister at the time Yoav Gallant had “incited the commission of genocide” in their speeches and statements.

Israel reacted furiously to the report, rejecting its findings and accusing the three members of the commission of serving as “Hamas proxies.”

Full text here.