WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday amplified a blistering denunciation of Navi Pillay’s selection for the prestigious annual Nobel Peace Prize. Pillay, a former United Nations official who has accused Israel of genocide, was targeted in the statement reposted by Trump.
“Today the Nobel Committee shamed itself beyond repair and demeaned the once great Nobel Peace Prize by giving it to the UN’s Navi Pillay. Pillay is an unabashed hater of America and Israel,” said the statement, issued by the Schoen Law Firm, which is based in Alabama and Georgia.
The statement also accused Pillay of supporting terrorists and rewarding Hamas, while dismissing her inquiry into Israel’s conduct as a “phony” investigation. It claimed she had wrongly concluded that Israel committed genocide and called for prosecutions. “She has no credibility in any normal sphere and has never done a thing to foster peace. Just the opposite,” the statement said, while also criticizing the committee for previously awarding the prize to Yasser Arafat.
Trump had not issued a statement in his own words about the decision. For years, however, he has argued that the Nobel committee should recognize his efforts to mediate international conflicts.
Pillay, a South African lawyer of Indian heritage, chaired the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory from 2021 through 2025.
In September 2025, the commission concluded that Israel had committed genocide during its war in Gaza against Hamas.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry also condemned the award. In a statement, it said Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels was “certainly applauding from hell.”
“If there were an award for lies, hatred, and blood libels, Navi Pillay wouldn’t just be a contender. She’d be a frontrunner,” the ministry said.
The ministry added that honoring Pillay with the Nobel Peace Prize was not an act of justice, but rather “the grotesque weaponization of an award to legitimize anti-Israel hatred and prejudice.”