War is the opposite of peace. When the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner, María Corina Machado, calls for the United States to take military action against Venezuela, we should ask the question: does someone who calls for war deserve such a prize? The answer should be self-evident. However, the Nobel Committee has a different view. By supporting Neoconservative-adjacent operatives, the organization and its Peace Prize have been thoroughly discredited. To restore credibility, the committee should change its rules to allow for the revocation of Nobel Peace Prizes from those who support bloodshed.
The aforementioned Venezuelan opposition leader, María Corina Machado, is a great example of how Western exceptionalism has inverted the concepts of war and peace in an Orwellian fashion. Machado, whose ties to Neocon imperialism date back to the George W. Bush administration, has made a career for herself by promoting regime change and misinformation about the Venezuelan government. During the 2002 coup which temporarily ousted Hugo Chávez, she signed a petition of support for the US-linked conspirators. In 2014, Machado was accused of being involved in an assassination and coup plot against Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro when the government released her private emails, including those mentioning US officials.
In recent years, Machado spread blatant misinformation that Maduro is the head of Tren de Aragua, which is a narrative also parroted by President Trump. According to The Grayzone, “the myth that Venezuela is a narco-state has already been debunked by the Washington Office in Latin America (WOLA), a think tank in Washington that generally supports US regime change operations… less than 7% of total drug movement from South America transits from Venezuela.” She has also repeatedly backed Trump’s boat strikes and even endorsed potential land strikes on Venezuela. Understandably, Machado has been labeled an extremist even by other members of the Venezuelan opposition. Her radicalism and support for US imperialism have put her in league with Israel and the extremist Likud party, which is currently conducting a genocide in Palestine.
Machado’s ties to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are strong and have only grown stronger since the outbreak of the current war and Israel’s subsequent genocide. Since the start of the current conflict, she has expressed solidarity with Israel. Israel, which has opposed the Venezuelan government due to its support for Palestine and South Africa’s International Criminal Court case against Israel, has backed the Venezuelan opposition. Soon after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, Machado called Netanyahu on October 17th, 2025, to position herself as an ally, in contrast to Maduro. She also stated she would support moving the Venezuelan embassy to Jerusalem. However, Machado is not the only Zionist, Neoconservative, or warmonger to receive the Nobel Peace Prize; in fact, there is a long history of undeserving individuals winning an award meant for authentic peacemakers.
While there are many examples of war hawks receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, the most obviously undeserving recipients include US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former US President Barack Obama, and former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. In 1973, Henry Kissinger received the Prize for helping end the war in Vietnam after sabotaging peace negotiations leading to the continuation of the war for years more. In total, it is estimated that Kissinger is responsible for the deaths of 3 million people across 10 different conflicts. More recently, Barack Obama received the award in 2009. To the Nobel Committee’s defense, it appeared to many in the early years of the Obama presidency that he would be a president of peace. Unfortunately, he became the architect of the numerous military strikes across the world, most notably the disastrous Libya intervention, which Obama admits was his “worst mistake.” In retrospect, both the Nobel secretary and Obama himself admitted that he did not deserve the Prize. Finally, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin received the prize for the Camp David Accords. Even the Nobel Prize website admits he was the former leader of the Irgun terrorist organization, and the Accords were negotiated under pressure from US President Jimmy Carter. With this context, it makes sense why María Corina Machado would receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Compared to her predecessors, she almost looks like Gandhi.
In conclusion, if the Nobel Committee wishes to gain any sort of credibility, it must be more selective with who it gives the Nobel Peace Prize to. Indeed, if the committee truly wished to gain credibility, it should simply revoke the Nobel Peace Prizes of the numerous figures who have spilled the blood of the innocent throughout history. All too often, the media and elite organizations position figures like Machado as instruments of freedom and democracy. This Orwellian notion is plain wrong. War is not peace. Peace is not war. The Nobel Committee should not equate the two.
J.D. Hester is an independent writer born and raised in Arizona. He has previously written for Antiwar.com and other websites. You can send him an email at josephdhester@gmail.com. Follow him on X (@JDH3ster).
