From Kissinger to Begin: Here are the controversial Nobel Peace Prize winners

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's nomination of US President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize has brought the award's controversial past back into the spotlight. We've compiled a list of the nine most controversial names associated with the Nobel Peace Prize.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's nomination of Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize on the grounds of the Abraham Accords has brought the award's long and controversial history back into the spotlight.

The Nobel Peace Prize committee has drawn criticism in the past for its awards to dictators implicated in war crimes. The award also has a history of being criticized for its lack of gender equality: only 19 of the 109 Nobel Peace Prize winners since 1901 have been women.

The Nobel Prize's controversial history is not limited to just the awards given; some of the most oppressive leaders of the 20th century were also nominated for the Nobel Prize.

Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was nominated by Swedish parliamentarian Erik Brandt in 1939 in protest. Soviet leader Josef Stalin was also nominated in the 1940s. Former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini is also known to have been nominated for the Nobel Prize in the 1930s. Although these nominations did not result in the award, they remain remembered as examples of how the Nobel nomination process is not immune to political influences.

US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who died in 2023 at the age of 100, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to negotiate a ceasefire in Vietnam in 1973. This award is considered one of the most controversial decisions in Nobel history, as US airstrikes in Vietnam were still ongoing at the time of the award.

Le Duc Tho, who won the prize alongside Kissinger, rejected it, saying, "no real peace has been achieved."

Kissinger was criticized not only for his role in Vietnam but also for other military operations in Southeast Asia. Along with Richard Nixon's administration, he ordered secret bombings of Laos and Cambodia. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of civilians died in these attacks. Kissinger is also credited with greenlighting the CIA-backed coup against socialist President Salvador Allende in Chile as part of the US Cold War strategy.

As one of the architects of US foreign policy, Kissinger played an active role in numerous crisis zones spanning Pakistan, Indonesia, the Middle East, and Africa during his tenure. These interventions were notorious for civilian casualties and human rights violations as much as for diplomatic successes.

Former US President Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, just one year into his term, for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation among peoples.” During Obama’s presidency, the US continued military operations in numerous conflict zones, particularly in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. According to human rights organizations, a total of 563 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) strikes were conducted in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia during the Obama administration, resulting in the deaths of between 384 and 807 civilians. In Yemen alone, a cluster bomb attack in 2009 reportedly killed 55 civilians, including 21 children.

According to UN data, 89 civilians were killed in 128 attacks in Pakistan in 2010. In Afghanistan, airstrikes increased by 40 percent during the troop withdrawal process, killing hundreds of civilians. While the Obama administration announced civilian casualties at 64 to 116, independent organizations have suggested the number is six times higher. This data does not include the more than 13,500 airstrikes conducted against ISIS in Iraq, Syria, and Libya.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was awarded the Nobel Prize for his efforts to promote peace and international cooperation, particularly his decisive attempt to resolve a border dispute with neighboring Eritrea. Just one year after the award, fighting broke out between government forces and local armed groups in the northern Ethiopian Tigray region.

The Tigray War, which began in November 2020, has claimed thousands of civilian lives and displaced hundreds of thousands. Throughout the conflict, reports of human rights violations, torture, and sexual violence against civilians have emerged. While a peace agreement signed in November 2022 largely halted the fighting, Human Rights Watch said violations persist, particularly in the western Tigray region. Laetitia Bader, the organization's deputy Africa director, said, "The November ceasefire did not end the ethnic cleansing of Tigrayans in western Tigray." She called on the Ethiopian government to allow independent investigations and bring those responsible to justice.

A report by Human Rights Watch stated that Tigray civilians were deported, forced into exile, tortured, and subjected to practices that put them at risk of death solely because of their ethnic identity.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978 for his joint negotiations for peace between Egypt and Israel. He was a member of the Hashomer Hatzair Boy Scout movement until the age of 13, and at 16 he joined Betar (Brit Trumpeldor), a nationalist youth movement affiliated with the Zionist Revisionist Movement. He returned to Poland in 1937 and served a term in prison for leading a demonstration in front of the British Embassy in Warsaw protesting British policies in Palestine. He organized groups of Betar members who had migrated to Palestine illegally, and in 1939 became the leader of the movement in Poland. With the outbreak of World War II, he was arrested by Russian authorities and interned in concentration camps in Siberia and elsewhere in 1940–41, but was released under the terms of the Stalin–Sikorsky Agreement.

After his release, he joined the Polish army and was sent to the Middle East. After his discharge in 1943, he assumed command of the Irgun Zvati Leumi (National Military Organization), known by its Hebrew initials as "Etzel." The Irgun was responsible for the massacre of more than 100 civilians in the Palestinian village of Deir Yasin in 1948 and is known for its bombing raids against the British mandate.

Former Myanmar leader Aung San Su Kyi has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her "non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights." Myanmar politician Aung San Suu Kyi won the award in 1991 for her peaceful struggle against the military junta. Twenty years later, she was severely criticized for remaining silent about the human rights violations and massacres committed against the Rohingya Muslims, which the UN has labeled a genocide.

Although he didn't win the Nobel Peace Prize, Donald Trump's nomination for the award by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sparked significant backlash. Trump has become a subject of controversy, particularly due to his decisions in the Middle East.

The Trump administration unilaterally recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and cut off Palestinian aid. It sided with Israel in the recent Israel-Iran war and bombed Iran's nuclear facilities.

Not only Trump's foreign policy, but also his domestic rhetoric and practices have increased the number of people who think that his nomination for an award like the Nobel Peace Prize is contradictory.

His anti-immigrant rhetoric, the construction of a wall on the Mexican border, the separation of refugee children from their families and the conditions in migrant camps have been harshly criticized by human rights organizations.

Anti-LGBTI+ policies have also become widespread during the Trump era. His ban on transgender people entering the military, the proliferation of anti-LGBTI+ laws in conservative states where Trump supports them, and his Islamophobic rhetoric have drawn criticism for being incompatible with Nobel's core values.

Trump’s degrading rhetoric towards women, his targeting of journalists, his one-time closeness to businessman and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, and his use of hateful language during the election campaign have further reinforced the view that the Nobel Peace Prize contradicts the principle of “human dignity.”

Source: Euronews , UNRWA , The Nobel Prize , Rutgers University , ABC News , BBC , Human's Right Watch