Chances of winning Nobel Peace Prize increase after Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal

The sudden announcement that Israel and Hamas had agreed to a U.S.-brokered ceasefire late Wednesday revived a once-far-fetched question in world politics: Could President Donald Trump win the Nobel Peace Prize?

If the ceasefire holds, it would mean a historic achievement months in the making for a president who has presented himself as a world peacemaker. Trump has long insisted he deserves the award, but he doubts the committee will ever give it to him.

“I don’t play politics about this,” Trump said when asked about the prospect at the Aug. 8 signing of a peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan at the White House. “I have a lot of people who are.”

Indeed, many have named him – often with great fanfare.

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President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire Wednesday evening after brokering peace between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas. (Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Nominations and deadlines

The deadline for this year’s nominations was January 31. Some proposals for Trump arrived before that date, but many arrived after the deadline. If he doesn’t win when the award is announced Friday, he could be considered again next year.

Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., said she nominated Trump, along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, for their work on the 2020 Abraham Accords between Israel and Arab states.

According to the Nobel committee, 338 candidates were nominated this year, including 244 individuals and 94 organizations.

Global push for Trump nomination

International support for Trump’s candidacy has come from various leaders. On June 20, Pakistani officials said they would recommend him for “decisive diplomatic intervention and crucial leadership” during a U.S.-brokered ceasefire between India and Pakistan.

Trump hailed as Nobel-worthy peacemaker for ‘historic’ peace deal between Israel and Hamas

A trio of Republican lawmakers appointed him after the Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, even though it has yet to produce a ceasefire in Ukraine. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., joked that he would be “the Democrat leading” the charge for Trump to win if he could also broker peace in that conflict.

Rep. Buddy Carter, Republican of Georgia, nominated Trump in June following the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Iran. Netanyahu said he submitted his own candidacy in July, while Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet announced their nominations after separate US-brokered peace deals in their regions.

According to Oddspedia, Trump currently leads the betting markets for the award, followed by Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms and Russian opposition figure Yulia Navalnaya, widow of the late Alexei Navalny. Other contenders – such as Greta Thunberg, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the International Criminal Court – represent causes often at odds with Trump’s policies.

U.S. President Donald Trump (center), Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev (left) and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan present the peace agreement they signed in the State Dining Room of the White House in August. Pashinyan said he would nominate Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

Trump: “People know”

Trump showed little confidence that the Nobel Committee would recognize him, despite his flurry of diplomatic initiatives.

“No, I will not get a Nobel Peace Prize no matter what I do – including in Russia/Ukraine and Israel/Iran, regardless of those consequences,” he wrote on Truth Social in June. “But people know it, and that’s all that matters to me.”

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Within the Nobel committee

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, based in Oslo, is made up of five members appointed by the Norwegian parliament to enforce the wishes of Alfred Nobel, awarding the prize to the one who has done “the most or best work for the brotherhood among nations”.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, based in Oslo, is made up of five members appointed by the Norwegian parliament to enforce the wishes of Alfred Nobel, awarding the prize to the one who has done “the most or best work for the brotherhood among nations”. (Tom Little/Reuters)

The current committee includes Jørgen Watne Frydnes, secretary general of the Utøya Foundation; Asle Toje, foreign policy specialist linked to the right-wing Progress Party; Anne Enger, former leader of the Center Party; Kristin Clemet, director of Civita, a center-right think tank that promotes free market and democratic values; and Gry Larsen, Secretary General of CARE Norway.

The composition of the panel suggests great chances for Trump. With most of its members steeped in Norway’s center-left and centrist traditions — and only Toje aligned with the right-wing Progress Party — the committee tends to favor humanitarian, consensual peace efforts over Trump’s deal-driven diplomacy. He is generally seen as cautious and pro-establishment, unlikely to reward his unconventional style even amid short-term progress in Gaza.

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Obama’s precedent

The Nobel Committee last faced this level of scrutiny when it awarded President Barack Obama the Peace Prize just nine months into his first term in 2009, citing his promotion of nuclear nonproliferation and a “new climate” in international relations.

Obama was very popular in Europe at the time, but by the end of his presidency, relations between the United States and Russia had fallen to post-Cold War lows, and American forces were still fighting in Afghanistan and Syria – a reminder that the Nobel Peace Prize can be as politically fraught as it is symbolic.