Kari Lake, the onetime Republican gubernatorial candidate and a staunch supporter of Donald Trump, said on Tuesday that the former president deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.
Lake's comment came in response to a piece published by the conservative news outlet The Federalist, written by Abraham Hamadeh. Last year, Lake and Hamadeh lost narrow races in Arizona, for the offices of governor and attorney general, respectively, despite receiving endorsements from Trump. Both have also garnered attention for their repeated efforts to contest their losses in court. Lake lost her race to Democrat Katie Hobbs by around 17,000 votes, while Hamadeh lost to Democrat Kris Mayes by a little under 300.
In the piece, Hamadeh argued that Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for the Abraham Accords, a Middle East peace accord brokered with aid from the Trump administration. The agreement was signed at the White House on September 15, 2020. The initial agreement saw Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates recognize the sovereignty of Israel and begin building diplomatic relations. Sudan and Morrocco later joined the accords.
Trump was nominated for the prize in 2020 for his role in the Abraham Accords but lost out to the United Nations' World Food Programme.
"Surely had it been [President Joe] Biden or anyone else, the Nobel Peace Prize Foundation would have already awarded its highest honor for the Abraham Accords," Hamadeh wrote. "Its failure to reward these historic agreements and Trump with the honor only damages the credibility of the Nobel Foundation. Peace shouldn't be political, especially in a world where it's hard to come by."
"My friend is right—President Trump Deserves A Nobel Peace Prize For The Abraham Accords," Lake wrote in a post to X, formerly Twitter, sharing Hamadeh's article.
While Hamadeh and others have offered praise for the agreement, others have taken a more mixed view of their results. In a report for the Middle East Institute think-tank last year for the agreement's second anniversary, authors Gerald M. Feierstein and Yoel Guzansky argued that they have "achieved mixed results."
While noting that there have been "new opportunities for defense and security cooperation" opened since 2020, they also found that "there are shortcomings in the level of cooperation as well."
"Most notably, despite the initial goal of the Arab organizers, cooperation among Israel and its Arab partners has failed to produce tangible improvements in the Israeli-Palestinian calculus," the authors said.
"That may change, as the Negev Forum includes as an element of its agenda taking steps to improve living conditions for Palestinians. Moreover, the Israelis are now, arguably, more cautious about managing relations with the Palestinians to avoid conflict with their newfound Arab partners. But any real change for Palestinians has so far been nearly invisible..."
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Thomas Kika is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in upstate New York. His focus is reporting on crime and national ... Read more
