By Philip Yeung
In the history of Nobel Prize, no one has ever been nominated by a convicted war criminal. Until now. We live in a morally helter-skelter world. The US president who, without provocation, bombed Iran last week while negotiating over a nuclear deal, is getting a Nobel Peace Prize nomination by Israel's Netanyahu, wanted by the International Criminal Court for genocide in Gaza. The ICC arrest warrant should have automatically disqualified him as a nominator, as it is akin to having a murderous gang boss putting up a rogue cop for the top law enforcement honor. His hands are dripping with the blood of over 60,000 innocent women and children in Gaza - some say the real number is hitting 100,000-plus. His soldiers have deliberately targeted doctors and medical workers in their indiscriminate destruction of hospitals. Hundreds of starving Gazans are shot in the chest and head while scrambling for scraps of food. Thanks to Netanyahu, Gaza is now unlivable - bombed to bits, with no water, no food, no electricity, and no undamaged houses to live in. Gazans are clawing at the periphery of a hellish existence. Netanyahu is sucking up to his US enabler—both with ice in their veins and stone in their hearts.
This Nobel nomination is a toe-curling ethical embarrassment for America. Netanyahu is harboring a diabolical plan to force Gazans into an internment camp with no exit. It is an open-air prison purpose-built for ethnic cleansing. His transparent goal is the illegal seizure of Palestinian land. Netanyahu doesn't even bother to disguise his evil intention as he openly asks other countries to take in displaced or deported Gazans to give them a "better future". He calls this internment camp a "humanitarian city". But as Amos Goldberg, a Jewish historian of the Holocaust, bluntly corrects him: "It is neither humanitarian nor a city," as it is totally devoid of the basic amenities for a civil society. It is but a brutal transit camp before Palestinians are expelled from their homeland.
By his nomination, Netanyahu is angling for a dirty quid pro quo for Trump's support for this concentration camp. But even a pro-Trump Russian news agency has given Trump a new nickname, "the war president". It would be an ethical oxymoron for a war president to win the Nobel Peace Prize. The nomination itself is a sacrilege. As for Netanyahu, his name cannot be mentioned alongside the word "peace". He is giving civilization his middle finger. Gazans die like flies while the world dithers.
Don't forget, beyond the deadly war zones in the Middle East, Trump is busy waging wars of another kind—against allies and adversaries alike, but fought without bullets and bombs. He is a wrecking ball that smashes the global order to smithereens. He should be in chains and behind bars. He tears everything he touches. He is the antithesis of the Nobel spirit.
Trump is famous for inventing his own alternative facts. Without respect for facts, there can be no freedom. Without a moral compass and surrounded by spineless sycophants, Trump is being played like a toy by Netanyahu, the professional ego-stroker. He must be snickering to himself as he submits Trump's name to the Nomination Committee. Elon Musk, with his ocean-deep pockets, should rush to the rescue and create a new IgNoble Prize for Global Trouble-Makers. Netanyahu would be the picture-perfect nominator, and Trump would win hands down. Trump needs 24/7 attention and desperately wants a trophy in his empty closet. The evil twins deserve each other.
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