US President Donald Trump Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

Sanchit Sawant

15th September 2020

President Trump announces the Israel-UAE peace deal in White House on August 13. (Source: ge.usembassy.gov)

Donald Trump has been nominated for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for referencing the 'historic peace agreement' between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel. He announced the peace deal on August 13th that would put Israeli annexation of West Bank lands on hold.

The two countries, Israel and UAE have agreed to normalise their diplomatic relations. UAE is the third Arab country to make such an agreement with the Jewish state; the first two countries being Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994. Trump was nominated in 2018 previously for his efforts to bring reunion between North and South Korea. "I think it is certainly well deserved. Trump has defeated the ISIS caliphate, liberated millions and also worked with Israel and its neighbours to create historical peace deals," author Sarah Sanders said to Fox News in an interview.

Following the UAE-Israel peace treaty, Trump on 11th September announced that Bahrain would establish complete diplomatic relations with Israel. Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu, the foreign ministers of Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates signed a general declaration of principles also known as the Abraham Accords which was presided over by Trump. The White House has named the Abraham Accords after the biblical father of monotheistic religions, and the individual agreements between Israel and the two Arab states. "After decades of division and conflict, we mark the dawn of a new Middle East," Mr Trump told a crowd of hundreds gathered at the White House.

The jury for nominating candidates for the Nobel Prize include members of national assemblies, national governments, international courts of law, university chancellors, professors of social science, history, philosophy, law and theology, former advisers of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, present and past members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, board members of the organisations that have received the Nobel Peace Prize, previous Nobel Peace Prize laureates, and the leaders of peace research institutes and institutes of foreign affairs.

After an agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to normalise the relations between the two countries was signed, the first Israeli commercial flight from Israel to UAE took off on 31st August.

(Sources: Fox News, Nobelprize.org, New York Times)

Edited by Pratheek S