South Africa’s Navi Pillay has been awarded the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize for her lifelong efforts to promote international law and peace. Whatever her achievements elsewhere, her record on Israel and the Palestinian territories raises serious questions about whether she deserves that honour.

As chair of the United Nations (UN) Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, Pillay presided over an investigation that concluded in September 2025 that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. That finding has since become one of the most powerful instruments in the international campaign against Israel, with consequences extending well beyond the Middle East to Jewish communities across the world.

I have written twice before about Pillay’s conduct, first in August 2022, when I questioned her suitability to chair the Commission, and again in September 2025, when I challenged its genocide findings. Her Nobel Prize makes those concerns more urgent.

A Commission Compromised from the Outset

The Commission was established in 2021 with an extraordinarily broad mandate to investigate alleged violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, together with the underlying causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

From the outset, its structure and membership raised questions about impartiality. Pillay and her fellow commissioners, Miloon Kothari and Chris Sidoti, were appointed despite objections concerning their previous positions on Israel.

Impartiality is a fundamental requirement of international fact-finding. The UN’s own guidelines require commissioners to demonstrate independence and objectivity and to disclose previous statements or activities that might create an appearance of bias.

These requirements exist precisely because the credibility of an investigation depends on the independence of those conducting it. Yet the UN Human Rights Council proceeded with appointments that were challenged on those grounds.

UN Watch, an organisation that monitors the Human Rights Council, formally sought Pillay’s removal. Its objections were rejected. The consequences of that decision became apparent when the Commission released its genocide report in September 2025.

The Genocide Allegation

Genocide is the gravest crimes recognised under international law. The Genocide Convention requires proof of prohibited acts accompanied by the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.

The Commission concluded that Israel was responsible for four of the five categories of genocidal acts recognised by the Convention. It relied on statements by Israeli officials, the conduct of Israeli forces, and an assessment that genocidal intent was the only reasonable inference from the available evidence.

That conclusion deserves far greater scrutiny than it has received, as does the entire report.

The Commission's reliance on inference to establish intent is particularly troubling given the extraordinary seriousness of the allegation. Its interpretation of Israeli conduct also fails, in my assessment, to give sufficient weight to the military circumstances in which the war was fought, Hamas’s methods of warfare, and the measures Israel adopted to limit civilian casualties.

The Commission accused Israel of deliberately starving Gaza’s population. Yet substantial quantities of food entered the territory during the conflict. According to the figures considered here, approximately 1.01 million tonnes entered between October 2023 and January 2025, against an estimated requirement of 825 000 tonnes. Between the October 2025 ceasefire and June 2026, the corresponding figures were 1.78 million tonnes and 643 000 tonnes.

The wider international response also deserves consideration. Countries have continued to strengthen diplomatic and commercial relationships with Israel, Western companies have invested in Israeli innovation, and governments have expanded purchases of Israeli defence technology.

While these developments do not, in themselves, settle the legal question of genocide. They do, however, sit uneasily alongside the portrayal of Israel as a state engaged in a systematic campaign of extermination.

Hamas and the Reality of Urban Warfare

Any serious assessment of the Gaza conflict must consider Hamas’s objectives and methods.

Hamas’s original 1988 charter contained explicitly antisemitic language, rejected negotiated peace and called for Israel’s destruction. Its 2017 policy document moderated some of that language but did not formally revoke the original charter.

The attacks of 7 October 2023 demonstrated the organisation’s willingness to murder civilians on a large scale. Israel’s subsequent military campaign took place in one of the world’s most densely populated territories, against an organisation that had constructed an extensive tunnel network beneath civilian areas.

Hamas’s tunnels, estimated at between 350km and 500km, were primarily designed to protect its fighters and military operations, rather than to provide shelter for Gaza’s civilian population.

Israel, meanwhile, employed telephone calls, text messages, leaflets, and other warnings intended to encourage civilians to leave areas before attacks. These measures did not prevent substantial civilian suffering, and their adequacy remains contested. They are nevertheless relevant to any determination of military intent.

Military analyst Andrew Fox, a former British Army officer with extensive operational experience, has challenged the genocide allegation and argued that evidence of individual violations must be distinguished from proof of an intention to destroy an entire population.

That distinction is essential. Allegations of unlawful military conduct demand investigation, but they cannot automatically establish genocide.

The Consequences for Jews Worldwide

The damage caused by the Commission's findings extends beyond the dispute over international law.

The genocide allegation has become central to a wider campaign of hostility towards Israel and, increasingly, towards Jews who have no responsibility for Israeli government policy. It has provided a powerful moral vocabulary through which longstanding antisemitic prejudices can be expressed and defended.

Fox has argued that the repetition of allegations against Israel has helped revive old forms of hatred. The consequences are particularly troubling for Jewish communities in Europe, including the United Kingdom and France, where concerns about antisemitism have contributed to decisions by some Jews to emigrate to Israel.

Social media has amplified these accusations, often stripping them of context and presenting contested allegations as established facts. Younger audiences are especially vulnerable to this process when online platforms become their principal source of information.

The danger is that an allegation carrying the authority of the UN acquires an apparent certainty that the underlying evidence may not justify. Once embedded in public consciousness, that perception is extraordinarily difficult to reverse.

A Prize That Damages the Cause of Peace

The Nobel Peace Prize should recognise those whose work advances peace, reconciliation, and respect for international law. In Pillay’s case, the award instead celebrates a body of work that, in my judgment, has deepened hostility and undermined confidence in the impartiality of international institutions.

Responsibility does not rest with Pillay alone. The UN appointed a Commission whose independence was questioned from the beginning, endorsed a process that produced profoundly contentious findings, and lent its authority to conclusions with serious consequences for Israel and Jewish communities internationally.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has now added its prestige to that record.

The result is a troubling inversion of the purpose of the Peace Prize. Work that should have been subjected to the most rigorous scrutiny has instead received one of the world’s highest honours.

Pillay’s award is therefore more than a misjudgement about one individual. It reflects a deeper failure of international institutions to distinguish between the pursuit of justice and the promotion of prejudice.

The ultimate responsibility lies with the UN, whose credibility depends on the very principles of independence, impartiality, and fairness that this Commission is obliged to uphold. 

Sara Gon is a political commentator, writer, and a Fellow of the South African Institute of Race Relations. Prior to that Sara was an partner at attorneys Webber Wentzel, and co-founder and manager of the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra. Sara presents a regular radio show on politics on Chai FM.