Trump says Nobel winner Pillay ‘hates Israel,’ slams Norway for not giving him prize

US President Donald Trump reiterated his complaints on Friday about not receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, calling it a disgraceful and embarrassing decision that had left a stain on Norway, and said that the winner Navi Pillay “hates Israel.”

Since returning to the White House in January 2025, Trump has made no secret of his desire to win the prestigious award.

The US president lashed out hours after the committee awarded this year’s prize to Pillay, a former International Criminal Court judge who oversaw a UN report that concluded Israel committed ​genocide in Gaza.

Trump said on social media that Pillay “very obviously, hates Israel.”

He called Pillay a “mystery person” during a campaign rally in Syracuse, New York. “I never heard of the person. Nobody did.”

Each year of his presidency, Trump has expressed disappointment at his failure to win the prize.

“This is an indelible stain on the country of Norway and those people that made such a disgraceful and embarrassing decision,” Trump said.

He listed a number of conflicts that he claimed a role in resolving and said he has helped prevent wars from breaking out between North and South Korea, Japan and North Korea, and China and Taiwan, without providing evidence.

“The Nobel Peace Prize has been forever discredited by a handful of radical ideologues who are anti-democracy and really enemies of civilization. And we will not forget, Norway,” he said.

Pillay’s win is seen as a stinging, high-profile rebuke to Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who have both rejected the findings of a UN commission she led that Israel committed genocide in Gaza. Both leaders also have been highly critical of the institutions where Pillay has worked, with Israel previously accusing her of being a “Hamas proxy” with a long history of vehemently anti-Israeli and antisemitic positions.

Pillay’s UN report made only a fleeting reference to the October 7 massacre, without any details on the attack that caused the war in Gaza.

At the time of its formation, Israel said it would not cooperate with the commission, noting what it said was the UN and Pillay’s long history of anti-Israel bias, and calling the commission “morally bankrupt.”

The commission does not speak on behalf of the UN. While it is not a legal body, its reports can influence diplomatic pressure and serve to gather evidence for later use by courts.

After hearing that she had won, Pillay appeared to taunt Trump and his well-known desire to win the prize.

“If you clap a little bit more, I may share this prize with Trump,” she said during a standing ovation captured by Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard in Nuremberg and posted on the social network X.

Last year, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado presented her Nobel Peace Prize medal to Trump.