President Trump lost out on earning this year’s Nobel Peace Prize despite brokering a historic cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas after more than two years of war.
But it wasn’t a snub, more just a case of bad timing — the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee made its decision on Monday, two days before the peace deal was struck, to bestow the award to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado.
“We receive thousands and thousands of letters every year of people wanting to say what — for them — leads to peace,” Nobel Peace Prize Committee Chair Jørgen Watne Frydnes said Friday.
“This committee sits in a room filled with the portraits of all laureates. That room is filled with both courage and integrity. We base only our decision on the work and will of Alfred Nobel.”
Footage from the streets of Tel Aviv and war-torn Gaza showed crowds of cheering revelers chanting Trump’s name in the hours after the deal was secured, some calling out “Nobel Prize to Trump!”
Many of the president’s allies have called for him to receive the award, pointing to his work to bring about peace in long-standing global conflicts between Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda; Cambodia and Thailand; India and Pakistan; Serbia and Kosovo; Egypt and Ethiopia; and Azerbaijan and Armenia.
A source close to Trump said winning the prestigious honor Friday would be a surprise and that next year’s prize is being eyed as a stronger possibility.
Four US presidents have won the prize: Theodore Roosevelt in 1906; Woodrow Wilson in 1920; Jimmy Carter in 2002; and Barack Obama in 2009.
NY Post