Donald Trump Gets Nominated Again: Estonian MEP Jaak Madison nominates ex-US president for Nobel Peace Prize

An Estonian MEP has nominated former US President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Jaak Madison, a member of the right-wing populist EKRE party, said on Facebook that Trump had contributed to ensuring stability in the Middle East.

In 2020, Israel and the United Arab Emirates agreed to a historic deal normalising of relations.

"Donald Trump is the first president of the United States in the last thirty years, whose office the country has not started any war," the MEP stated on Facebook, citing his nomination application.

"In addition, several peace agreements have been made under his leadership in the Middle East, which has helped ensure stability in the region and peace."

Madison also confirmed that he had submitted the nomination "exactly two hours" before the deadline on January 31.

According to the foundation's website, lawmakers currently serving in a national legislature can nominate someone for the Nobel Peace Prize.

"I'm definitely not the only one who nominated this candidate, but as we know, the more applicants, the more likely success is," he added. "Let's see who gets the Nobel Peace Prize."

In September last year, a far-right Norwegian lawmaker also put forward Donald Trump's name to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which does not publically comment on nominees.

"No matter how Trump acts at home and what he says at press conferences," stated Christian Tybring-Gjedde of the Progress Party.

Former US President Barack Obama was awarded the prize in 2009 just months into his first term in office.

Meanwhile, Estonia's conservative EKRE party has previously generated controversy when Interior Minister Mart Helme labelled then-President-elect Joe Biden a "corrupt character" and questioned the integrity of the US presidential election.

Following the government collapse earlier this year, EKRE is no longer part of the Estonian ruling coalition.

A story of Alfred Nobel and his Peace Prize

In 1876 in Vienna, Baroness Von Suttner, seeking to break up the romance between her son, Arthur, and her daughters’ governess, an intelligent, talented, and beautiful woman, but not of high enough social/financial standing for her son, shows the governess, Bertha, a want ad from a wealthy, cultured, elderly gentleman, living in Paris, looking for a lady to act as his secretary and household manager.

Bertha, taking the hint and needing a job, meets the gentleman, one Alfred Nobel, and agrees to work for him. However just as Nobel is starting to have possibly a more romantic interest in Bertha, she elopes with Arthur and they go to what is present-day Georgia (the country, not the state). Arthur and Bertha become famous and wealthy from writing books against war and promoting the peace movement. They return to Europe, no longer estranged from Arthur’s family, and Bertha and Alfred Nobel continue to exchange letters – her letters pushing the peace movement, his including financial support for her peace organization more out of friendship for her than as a devotee to her peace groups.

Nobel does oppose the wars fought increasingly with his invention in Europe and elsewhere, but he thinks peace can be accomplished more effectively with practical treaties between governments rather the propaganda of peace societies in which Bertha is involved. In the complete quote Nobel wrote to Bertha in 1892:

“Perhaps my factories will put an end to war even sooner than your congresses; on the day that two army corps can mutually annihilate each other in a second, all civilised nations will surely recoil with horror and disband their troops.”

At another time, Nobel realized that the mutual annihilation of armies would not be enough to stop war and wrote:

“A mere intensification of the deadly precision of war weapons will not secure peace for us. The limited effect of explosives is a big obstacle to this. To remedy this defect war must be made as death dealing to the civil population at home as to the troops at the front. Let a sword of Damocles hang over every head, and you will witness a miracle – all war will stop instantly.” (see Alfred Nobel: the man and his work, Erik Bergengren, 1960, p. 194, or Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Nov 1980, p. 10)

The reader can determine whether these claims proved to be correct. Nevertheless, Nobel continued to support Bertha and her peace movement and encourage her – “Inform me, convince me, and then I will do something great for the movement.”

And before he died in 1896, Nobel did set up in his will the plans for the awarding of a Peace Prize. In 1905 the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Bertha.

For more information, see Irwin Abram’s Alfred Nobel, Bertha Von Suttner and the Nobel Prize”, published as “The Odd Couple” in Scanorama Vol. 23 no. 11 (November 1993), pp. 52-56 and Bertha Von Suttner and the Nobel Peace Prize.”

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