Anti-Israel UN recipient

Former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, who has repeatedly demonised Israel, will receive the 2025 Sydney Peace Prize for “a lifetime of advocating for accountability and responsibility in the face of crimes against humanity”.

In 2021 the Human Rights Council created an ongoing, anti-Israel Commission of Inquiry and appointed Pillay, who was born in South Africa, to head it. In her position has UN High Commissioner she oversaw four fact-finding missions targeting Israel, more than any other country. She also convened the 2009 Durban II conference, which was boycotted by most democracies, and provided Iran’s then-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a prominent platform to disseminate antisemitic vitriol.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Peter Wertheim said rewarding Pillay “will only promote more hatred, division and violence, not peace”.

“It seems that the Sydney Peace Prize is awarded to recipients for having the ‘correct’ opinions, rather than for making a real contribution to peace,” he said.

“Navi Pillay has authored numerous reports and articles about the Israel-Palestinian conflict which have been trenchantly criticised by democratic governments for their moral inversion, falsehoods and selectivity, all having the effect of vilifying Israel and whitewashing the terrorists who try to destroy it. One especially egregious report was dubbed ‘Pillay’s Pogrom’.”