A 2024 Nobel Peace Prize Shortlist Mocks The Death Of Jews

On October 3, 2024, the Director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), Henrik Urdal, announced his updated list today for the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize. While PRIO is not associated with the Nobel committee, its views are considered influential. The list included:

  • OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights
  • Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms
  • UNRWA and Philippe Lazzarini
  • International Court of Justice (ICJ)
  • UNESCO and the Council of Europe

In selecting UNRWA, PRIO stated “The UN agency has faced a massive funding crisis for years, which has been exasperated by the war itself, and increasingly by the impact of US withdrawing funding following allegations by Israel that 12 participants of the 7 October attacks were Hamas militants, employed by UNRWA. The UN agency took the allegations seriously, by launching both an internal investigation and an external review of its procedures. UNRWA has extensive control mechanisms in place, with a zero tolerance, but not zero risk policy. They therefore terminated the employment of individuals where there was any indication that they might have had ties to militant groups. Throughout the war UNRWA itself has been heavily targeted by Israeli attacks, and by the end of September, 224 of its staff had been killed in Gaza, and 190 UNRWA installations had been damaged. UNRWA’s operation is absolutely fundamental to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. A Nobel Peace Prize to the agency and its Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini would send a strong message about its role in supporting the lives of millions of Palestinian women, men and children.”

Nowhere was it noted that UNRWA teaches its students to despise Israeli Jews. Nowhere was it mentioned that UNRWA has promised 6 million Palestinian Arabs – 42% of whom already live in historic region of Palestine – that their future is inside of Israel, whether Israel likes it or not.

In short-listing the ICJ, PRIO wrote “While a Nobel Peace Prize to the ICJ would largely be seen as uncontroversial, the Court acted boldly in January this year ordering Israel to take action to prevent acts of genocide in the Gaza Strip. In addition, it acted early in March 2022 by ordering Russia to ‘immediately suspend the military operations’ in Ukraine.”

The anti-Israel actions were not an accident or related to the current war.

In 2021, PRIO did not recommend Jared Kushner who helped engineer the Abraham Accords which formed normalization agreements between Israel and four Arab and Muslim countries, a feat which was once considered impossible. Instead it nominated B’Tselem & the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) for “contributing to raising awareness in Israel and elsewhere of the need for the Israeli regime to change course if the conflict is to have any chance of reaching a peaceful and just resolution.”

In short, the recommendations for a peace prize in the shadow of the brutal slaughter of Jews was to send a political message that Jews deserve neither peace nor justice; they should have neither until the Palestinian victims of preference achieve all of their goals.

ACTION ITEM

Contact PRIO at urdal@prio.org and +47 92 04 78 41 that the barbaric slaughter of Jews should be condemned clearly and the murderers brought to justice, and their protectors should not be celebrated on the global stage, a mockery to both living and dead Jews.

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Jared Kushner’s Parents Donate $20 million to the First Hospital Likely to Win the Nobel Peace Prize (December 2016)

New York Times Grants Nobel Prize-in Waiting to Palestinian Arab Terrorist (February 2016)

Israel’s Soldiers Also Earn the Honors

Since Israel’s independence in 1948, Israel has won 12 Nobel Prizes, an incredible total for such a small country. When considering that over those 70 years the country had to fight numerous wars, absorb millions of immigrants and develop an economy, the total is even more remarkable.

Even when backing out Nobel Prizes awarded for peace, which is the most dubious category as it is more aspirational and political than the other categories, Israel has still won 9 prizes. That puts the country as a top five winner of Nobel Prizes per capita.

Rank Country Nobel Prizes since 1948  2017 Population (m)  Nobels per Capita Non-Peace Prizes  Nobels per Capita
1 Sweden 19                  9.90                  1.92 18                  1.82
2 Switzerland 15                  8.37                  1.79 15                  1.79
3 Norway 8                  5.23                  1.53 8                  1.53
4 United Kingdom 93                65.64                  1.42 86                  1.31
5 Israel 12                  8.55                  1.40 9                  1.05
6 Austria 9                  8.75                  1.03 8                  0.91
7 Ireland 6                  4.77                  1.26 4                  0.84
8 Hungary 8                  9.82                  0.81 8                  0.81
9 Germany 60                82.67                  0.73 58                  0.70
10 Denmark 4                  5.73                  0.70 4                  0.70

The country also proves itself to be a leader in the commercial application of science and technology. Israel ranks as number 8 regarding patent filings per capita.

Rank Country  2016 patent filings  2017 Population (m)  Filings per capita
1 Switzerland            47,000                   8.37               5,614
2 South Korea         233,786                 51.25               4,562
3 Japan         456,467               127.00               3,594
4 Sweden            23,453                   9.90               2,368
5 Netherlands            39,058                 17.02               2,295
6 Germany         177,073                 82.67               2,142
7 Denmark            11,727                   5.73               2,046
8 Israel            15,108                   8.55               1,768
9 United States         521,802               325.70               1,602
10 Austria            13,869                   8.75               1,586

Not surprisingly, there is a strong correlation to the science awards and Nobel prizes in science to the educational level of the population. Israel ranks #2 in terms of the percent of the population with a tertiary education.

Rank Country  % Population with Tertiary education
1 Canada 51%
2 Israel 46%
3 Japan 45%
4 United States 42%
5 New Zealand 41%
6 South Korea 40%
7 United Kingdom 38%
8 Finland 38%
9 Australia 38%
10 Ireland 37%

The statistics above are simple numerical facts. Various organizations use these numbers and others to provide their views of the “qualitative” nature of the country by different measures.

For example, The Heritage Foundation produced its 2018 freedom ranking of 180 countries. It used measures such as the rule of law, property rights and openness of its markets to score each country. Israel ranked #31, ahead of some of the countries listed in the statistical tables above such as Austria #32 and Hungary #55, but behind the others. The Economist had a similar ranking, placing Israel as tied for #30. This is likely due to Israel’s hostile neighbors, many of which do not recognize its right to exist and are at an official state of war, which compromises some of Israel’s freedoms. This dynamic is in contrast to the other countries on the list, that have not fought four wars and multi-year mass riots since the turn of the century.

However, it is interesting to note that several of the countries that lead in science do not just lead in education, but have a mandatory military draft like Israel, including: Denmark; South Korea; Norway and Switzerland. The book Start-up Nation, attributes much of Israel’s economic success to the training a person gets in the army. Those skills are not limited to technical training, but also leadership and a sense of communal belonging. Perhaps countries like Denmark and Switzerland have similarly benefited from military training.

But none of those other countries have faced the missiles, gunfire, bombings, the wars and riots that Israel has had to endure. Switzerland continues to reduce the size of its army and holds a vote every few years to abolish conscription. It views the army as a holdover of a different time. Yet Israelis know that enemies that seek the country’s destruction are just miles away. Today.


Israeli soldiers at Har Herzl in Jerusalem

And so it is perhaps appropriate to pause on Yom Hazikaron, the day of remembering the fallen Israeli soldiers, to recall not just their sacrifice, but to honor them with a helek, a portion of every Nobel Prize, every doctorate, every award won and every IPO completed by each Israeli since the country’s founding. Every soldier has earned a part of it too.


Related First.One.Through articles:

Israel, the Liberal Country of the Middle East

A Flower in Terra Barbarus

Israel’s Peers and Neighbors

The Color Coded Lexicon of Israel’s Bigotry: It’s not Just PinkWashing

Israel: Security in a Small Country

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