Prize Wide Open
1st February 2021
If the Nobel Peace Prize really followed Alfred Nobel’s wishes, the next winners should be Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu and Mohammed bin Zayed of the UAE. In reality, this is comically impossible. The mock-outrage elicited by Alan Dershowitz’s nomination of Kushner and his aide Avi Berkowitz shows how far the Nobel has drifted into a partisan theater in which every entrance and exit comes from stage-left.
A few weeks ago, the London Spectator published my review of Betraying the Nobel, Unni Turrettini’s exposé of the Nobel’s institutional rot. A member of the Nobel Committee took a break from patronizing the world and sent an outraged complaint to the editor. He accused me of misinformation, disinformation and unspecified yet unforgivable malice towards his high-status, free-lunch side-gig. In other words, he accused me of telling truths that he didn’t like, and expected them to be altered accordingly.
Bear in mind that Barack The Magic Negro got the Nobel Peace Prize just for being black and winning the Presidential election, not for, you know, actually doing anything — the ultimate participation trophy.