by B. R. GOWANI
Trump
Some crave fame, recognition, medals, and honors persistently, more so in competitive cutthroat societies, one may say it is widely prevalent in the US — the most capitalist country in the world. President Donald Trump is one of those who love to be on top all the time with medals, honors, and what not.
Trump was looking forward to be announced recipient of 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for his, according to him, role in stopping many wars, and especially the Israeli war against Gazans which has turned Gaza, Palestine, into ruins and a graveyard of well over 500,000 Palestinians.
Trump boasted:
“I’ve stopped six wars—I’m averaging about a war a month.”
White House press secretary Karoline Levitt parroted:
“It is well past time that President Trump was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”
Trump also passed the criteria set up by the Nobel Peace Prize committee. He was nominated by many leaders, including Pakistan’s Islamist supreme leader Asim Munir and Israel’s “genocidal maniac” Benjamin Netanyahu. Most of the nominations came after the January 31, 2025, the deadline for submissions to the Nobel committee.
If Trump had won, it would have been in keeping with past winners: Henry Kissinger, Elie Wiesel, Barack Obama, Menacham Begin, etc. who have received it, too.
Maria Corina Machado
The Nobel Committee had someone else in mind for choosing the 2025 winner; it went to Venezuela’s opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, “somebody who’s completely aligned with the most militarist and darkest face of U.S. imperialism,” as historian Greg Grandin told Amy Goodman.
White House Communications Director Stephen Cheung blasted the verdict:
“President Trump will continue making peace deals, ending wars, and saving lives. He has the heart of a humanitarian, and there will never be anyone like him who can move mountains with the sheer force of his will. The Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace.”
Maria Corina Machado?
Absolutely not a right choice. There are many deserving candidates <1> who are fighting for peace and justice despite facing adversities, sanctions, and, sometimes, even death. As a matter of fact, many have died too. But then Western institutions do their work keeping Western interests in mind <2>.
Why would the Nobel committee choose a dubious Venezuelan for the prize when Trump is already looking for an excuse to remove its leader Nicolas Maduro? The Trump government has already killed 61 people by attacking 14 boats on a pretext of attacking “narco-terrorists.”
Venezuela’s Machado approves of US deadly sanctions on her own country, that have already killed over 100,000 Venezuelans.
Talking to Fox TV, Machado claimed:
“Maduro has turned Venezuela into the biggest threat to the national security of the US and the stability of the region.”
Every power-hungry politician always tells the same thing to the US, that his or her country is the biggest threat to the US national security, even though it i always other way around.
Michelle Ellner, a Venezuelan-American, described her correctly:
“She’s the smiling face of Washington’s regime-change machine, the polished spokesperson for sanctions, privatization, and foreign intervention dressed up as democracy.”
Trump, who was not happy for being ignored by the Nobel Committee, said:
“The person who actually got the Nobel Prize called today, called me and said, I’m accepting this in honor of you, because you really deserved it. A very nice thing to do.”
“I didn’t say ‘then give it to me,’ though, I think she might have.” “She was very nice. And I’ve been, you know, I’ve been helping her along the way. She — they need a lot of help in Venezuela, it’s a basic disaster.”
Machado tweeted on X and dedicated the award to Trump.
“I dedicate this prize to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause!”
Trump has lost the Peace Prize but has procured the right to war -because of her winning the Prize — thanks to the Western Nobel Peace committee that provided fuel to Trump in his zeal to overthrow Maduro and push Venezuela into chaos. If Trump goes to war against Venezuela, which it seems likely, he will justify that the Venezuelans “need a lot of help.”
Professor Grandin is baffled by the Nobel Committee’s decision:
“… it’s laying the groundwork and justifying greater military escalation. It’s really a disaster. It’s really, really hard to understand how they came to this decision.”
Machado’s history:
- Hugo Chavez (1954 – 2013) came to power in 1999. Machado supported a brief coup against Chavez in 2002 led by Baby Bush. Chavez called President George W. Bush, “danger man.”
- Machado has promised to “privatize Venezuela’s state oil industry.”
- In February 2025, Machado joined a meeting of “Patriots for Europe,” a movement which includes many fascistic elements. One of the slogan used was “Reconquista,” or “re-conquer,” that is, re-conversion of Muslims and expulsion of Muslims and Jews in the 15th century. Israeli Likud Party was present at that meeting, too.
- Machado claimed “Venezuela’s struggle is Israel’s struggle.” Chavez broke off relations with Israel after Israel’s more than three week war against Palestinians in 2008 -2009. After winning the Prize, Machado declared:“I promise one day, we’ll have a close relationship between Venezuela and Israel. That will be part of our support to the State of Israel.”
Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to a clearly undeserving candidate reduces its value greatly in the opinion of people who are well versed with world events.
Notes:
<1> The Nobel Committee is blind to the many deserving candidates. There is something seriously wrong with the Nobel Committee not wanting to award for peace efforts in resolving the Israeli war against the Palestinians in Gaza, journalists reporting from the ruins of Gaza, the people involved in trying for ceasefire, and halting death and destruction there.
There were 338 contenders, 244 individuals and 94 organizations, for the 2025 nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize.
There were so many deserving people and institutions to choose from if the Nobel Committee was genuinely concerned about peace and justice. A few individuals involved with full intensity and true concern for the Palestinian lives.
Francesca Albanese, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, occupied since 1967, is a real hero who understands the pain of Palestinians, and who has worked day and night preparing reports, giving lectures and interviews, and drawing world’s attention to the death and destruction caused by Israel in Gaza.
One of her reports, From Economy Of Occupation To Economy Of Genocide – (A/HRC/59/23) has detailed how big corporations, including Caterpillar Inc. (US), Swedish Volvo Group, Spanish/Basque Construcciones Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles, Keller Williams Realty LLC (global), Swiss Glencore plc, US-based Lockheed Martin, Microsoft (US), Alphabet Inc (Google) (US), Amazon.com Inc. (US) and even religious organizations, educational institutions, and all sorts of groups are involved. (See the full report here.)
The US government sanctioned Albanese for calling out companies profiting from the Israeli genocide by selling services, goods, and arms to Israel.
Albanese responded:
“No comment on mafia style intimidation techniques.” “Busy reminding member states of their obligations to stop and punish genocide. And those who profit from it.”
(The website Change.org is collecting signatures for a petition to nominate Francesca Albanese for a Nobel Peace Prize here.)
Many Arab countries and Turkey have been doing business with Israel for a long time.
Israel has murdered more than 270 journalists and media workers in Gaza who were risking their lives and reporting on the genocide. These reporters could have been nominated.
Likewise, Palestinian nurses, doctors, aid workers, and so many other people deserved the Nobel too for serving humanity’s most devastated victims.
In a way it is good that Francesca Albanese, journalists in Gaza, nurses and other health workers didn’t get the Nobel Peace Prize; they deserve something better than the tainted Nobel Peace Prize.
<2> British economist John Ross told an interviewer Chinese economists should have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for the last four decades. Han Feizi agrees and points out the reason:
A 50x increase in GDP since 1978 for 1.4 billion people has certainly been more impactful than, say, a neat little math tool whose most primary use case is to match US and Canadian medical students with residency programs.
B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com