The Nobel Committee Should Give Zelensky the Peace Price Now
by Alan M. Dershowitz • March 9, 2022 at 3:30 pm
The prize is awarded only to living recipients. The question is, will Zelensky be alive in the fall? He himself has acknowledge that he is Russian's "number one target," and we know from tragic experience how Putin deals with his targets. They are poisoned, thrown out of windows and killed in other brutal and sometimes subtle ways.
Accordingly, the Nobel Committee should break with tradition, meet now and award Zelensky the prize.
This may not save his life, or the lives of heroic people of Ukraine, but it may make it just a little bit harder for Putin to incur the wrath of the entire world by murdering the holder of the Nobel Peace Prize.
The Committee likes to say that its nomination is designed not only to award past actions, but also to influence the present and the future of peacemaking activities. No award could meet those criteria as effectively as the Peace Prize for Zelensky.
To be sure there have been other massacres and even genocides, but the invasion of an entirely peaceful nation cannot go unrecognized by a committee whose agenda includes rewarding the past and influencing the future.
So, the question is not whether Zelensky deserves the Prize. He does. The only question is when he should get it.
As the great Rabbi Hillel once said: "If not now, when?"
The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded in the fall to a living person who has fought for peace. If Volodymyr Zelensky lives until then, he will certainly be the prime candidate for that important recognition. The specific criteria listed in Alfred Nobel's will are limited to advancing "fellowship among nations", helping to reduce "standing armies" and promoting "peace conferences." But the Committee has broadened them to include protection of the environment, promotion of free speech and other activities that oppose war. Zelensky would seem to meet these broadened criteria.
