Nobel Peace Prize Winner Supports Israelâs Genocide & Trumpâs War on Venezuela
By Ben Norton – Oct 13, 2025
Nobel Peace Prize laureate MarĂa Corina Machado is a far-right Venezuelan coup-plotter funded by the US government. She supports Israel as it commits genocide and is central to Trumpâs regime-change war against President Maduro.
The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to MarĂa Corina Machado, a far-right coup leader in Venezuela who has been funded by the US government for decades.
Machado has openly called for the US military to invade Venezuela, in order to overthrow the revolutionary Chavista government of President NicolĂĄs Maduro.
She is at the heart of the war that Donald Trump has waged on Venezuela. Machado has endorsed the US militaryâs extrajudicial executions of Venezuelans in boats in international waters, echoing the Trump administrationâs unsubstantiated, evidence-free claims that it is supposedly killing âdrug traffickersâ.
Machado also supports the illegal, unilateral US sanctions that have killed hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans.
Likewise, Machado has expressed staunch support for Israel as it carried out genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza.
Nobel Peace Prize for war criminals
The fact that a pro-war, far-right coup-plotter like Machado was given a Nobel Peace Prize demonstrates how extremely hypocritical the award is.
This hypocrisy is far from new.
US imperial planner Henry Kissinger was given a so-called Nobel Peace Prize in 1973, despite the fact that he was one of the worst war criminals in modern history, with the blood of millions of victims on his hands, in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Bangladesh, Chile, and beyond.
Former US President Barack Obama also won a so-called Nobel Peace Prize in 2009. His administration then went on to wage nonstop war. Obama bombed seven countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen.
This is by no means the first time that the Norwegian Nobel Committee has been hypocritical. But giving the prize to MarĂa Corina Machado is especially outrageous, because it comes precisely at a moment when, one, she has been supporting Israelâs genocide in Gaza; and two, she is working with Donald Trump to wage war and use violence to try to overthrow Venezuelaâs government.
MarĂa Corina Machado supports Israelâs genocidal regime
Machado has openly praised Israel as it has carried out a genocide against the Palestinian people.
A United Nations commission led by renowned experts on international humanitarian law stated clearly that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.
In January 2025, Machado held a call with Israelâs Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Saâar. She expressed her âgratitude to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israelâ, adding that she âimmensely values the support of the government of Israelâ.
The genocidal Israeli regime has refused to recognize the government of Venezuelaâs constitutional, internationally recognized President NicolĂĄs Maduro, and has instead recognized US-backed coup leader Edmundo GonzĂĄlez, who lives in Spain and is a proxy for Machado.
In April 2024, Israel attacked Iran in an act of aggression, and Tehran hit back in self-defense. Machado immediately took to Twitter to condemn Iran. She emphasized her âsolidarity with the State of Israel amid the direct aggression by the Iranian regimeâ.
Machado denounced the supposed ârisk represented by the alliance of Iran with the Venezuelan regimeâ, and she vowed that, if the US can successfully put her in power in Caracas, Machado would form a close alliance with the US and Israel against Iran and the Palestinian people.
In 2023, Machado again tweeted support for Israel, expressing hope that it has a âlong and happy existenceâ, adding that the far-right Venezuelan opposition and the genocidal Israeli regime share common âvaluesâ.
One of the clearest illustrations of Machadoâs extremist politics came in 2018, when she published an open letter to Israelâs Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, asking the genocidal leader to help her overthrow Venezuelan President Maduro.
Machado requested that Israel, Argentinaâs right-wing government, and other countries in the âinternational communityâ give the Venezuelan opposition âthe necessary support to generate a regime changeâ against Maduro.
In the letter, Machado cited âthe doctrine of the Responsibility to Protectâ, which was used by the United States to justify its 2011 war on Libya. That US-led NATO war destroyed the central government of what had once been a peaceful, stable, and prosperous oil-rich North African country and turned it into a lawless failed state with open-air slave markets.
The 2018 open letter in which MarĂa Corina Machado asked Israel and Argentina to intervene in Venezuela to bring about âregime changeâ
Today, Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity that his regime has committed in Gaza.
Venezuela does not have formal diplomatic relations with Israel. They were repeatedly broken by revolutionary former President Hugo ChĂĄvez and his successor Maduro, both of whom have been strong supporters of the Palestinian people and have condemned Israel for committing genocide.
An image circulated by the Venezuelan government with President NicolĂĄs Maduro showing support for Palestine
MarĂa Corina Machado is at the center of Donald Trumpâs regime-change war on Venezuela
Giving the so-called Nobel Peace Prize for MarĂa Corina Machado is even more outrageous considering that she is at the heart of a war that the US government is currently waging against Venezuela.
Donald Trump has launched multiple military attacks, killing dozens of Venezuelans without charge or trial. In flagrant violation of international law, the US military has repeatedly bombed boats surrounding Venezuela in international waters, claiming without any evidence that they were full of people trafficking âdrugsâ.
Machado has supported Trumpâs attacks on her country, including his extrajudicial executions of Venezuelans without charge or trial.
The Financial Times interviewed Machado, and she admitted that she is working with the US government to try to overthrow Venezuelaâs President Maduro.
The FT reported that the âdeployment of US warships to the southern Caribbean has encouraged thousands of Venezuelans to join an underground movement preparing to bring down President NicolĂĄs Maduroâ.
The Trump administration has sent eight warships and thousands of troops to the Caribbean, the FT reported, along with 10 F-35 jets in Puerto Rico. The newspaper noted that this is the largest US military buildup in the region since the 1994 US invasion of Haiti.
âTop figures in the Venezuelan opposition say they have been in touch with senior Trump administration officials to discuss how to choreograph Maduroâs downfallâ, the FT wrote.
The newspaper quoted Machado, who threatened, âThis set of internal and external forces have created the conditions for Maduro and his regime to increasingly understand that their time is up and that their best option is to leave power nowâ.
What does Machado hope to do if the US manages to put her in power?
The far-right opposition leader admitted in another interview with the Financial Times that she wants to privatize Venezuelaâs enormous oil reserves.
âWe have to privatise and open up the markets, beginning with the energy sectorâ, Machado told the FT in 2023.
After calling to sell off Venezuelaâs state-owned oil company PDVSA, she stressed that the South American nationâs enormous oil and gas reserves, along with its lucrative minerals, âwill all be open to private investmentâ.
The newspaper acknowledged in passing that Machado has a âradical reputationâ in Venezuela. This is putting it mildly. Machado is the leader of the far-right extremist wing of Venezuelaâs opposition. It is explicitly violent and anti-democratic, and notoriously corrupt.
Trump said he wants to âtake overâ Venezuela and exploit its oil
During Trumpâs first term as US president, he launched another coup attempt in Venezuela.
In 2019, Washington appointed the unelected right-wing opposition figure Juan GuaidĂł as the so-called âinterim presidentâ of Venezuela, despite the fact that he had never participated in a presidential election.
The US and its European allies then proceeded to freeze and steal billions of dollars worth of Venezuelan government assets, which were used to fund the coup attempt â and enrich leading figures from the corrupt Venezuelan opposition.
Venezuelan coup leader Juan GuaidĂł in the White House with US President Donald Trump in February 2020
Trumpâs coup attempt clearly failed during his first term. At a Republican Party rally in 2023, he complained that the US empire had been very close to âtaking overâ Venezuela and pillaging his oil. He fumed:
Venezuela. How about weâre buying oil from Venezuela? When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have taken it over. We would have gotten all that oil. It would have been right next door.
In fact, right after the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that it had given its so-called peace prize to Machado, Trump held a press conference in the White House.
There, Trump revealed that Machado had called him on the phone to thank him for helping her try to overthrow Maduro.
Trump boasted that he has been supporting Venezuelaâs far-right opposition. These were his remarks:
The person who actually got the Nobel Prize called today [on October 10], called me, and said, âIâm accepting this in honor of you because you really deserved itâ.
A very nice thing to do. I didnât say, âThen give it to meâ, though. I think she might have. She was very nice.
And Iâve been, you know, Iâve been helping her along the way. They need a lot of help in Venezuela.
Nobel âWarâ Prize: Machado Awarded for Advocating US, Israeli Attack on Venezuela
MarĂa Corina Machado supports illegal US sanctions that have killed hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans
Machado has also advocated for years for the United States to impose more and more sanctions on Venezuela, which violate international law.
These unilateral coercive measures have killed hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans.
In 2017, when Trump levied heavy sanctions on Venezuela, Machado praised them, writing happily in an approving tweet, âThese sanctions are surgical and effective; with a strong financial, commercial, and political impactâ.
Then, in 2018, Machado insisted that âthe regime will only leave with forceâ. She demanded âInternational force:Â more lawsuits and sanctionsâ.
International experts have pointed out that the illegal US sanctions on Venezuela are responsible for at least tens of thousands of deaths, and likely hundreds of thousands.
Renowned economists Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs calculated that US sanctions caused more than 40,000 deaths in Venezuela in just one year, from 2017 to 2018.
Their findings were published in a 2019 study at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in Washington, DC.
âThe sanctions have reduced the availability of food and medicine, and increased disease and mortalityâ, they wrote.
Weisbrot and Sachs also warned that, âif the sanctions continued, they will almost certainly result in tens of thousands more avoidable deathsâ.
The unilateral coercive measures have indeed continued since then, meaning it is likely that hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan civilians have been killed by these illegal US sanctions.
This was implied by another peer-reviewed scientific study, published in 2025 in the worldâs leading medical journal, The Lancet.
Unilateral economic sanctions have caused an average of 564,000 excess deaths every single year for the past five decades, the latter study found.
The majority of the deaths from sanctions have been children under the age of five, concluded economists Mark Weisbrot, Francisco RodrĂguez, and Silvio RendĂłn.
The United States is responsible for imposing the majority of unilateral sanctions, in violation of international law.
This means that Nobel âPeaceâ Prize laureate MarĂa Corina Machado has supported illegal coercive measures that have killed hundreds of thousands of her countrymen, including many children.
Marco Rubio, Mike Waltz, and other US politicians lobbied Norwegian Nobel Committee for MarĂa Corina Machado
US government officials played a key role in lobbying the Norwegian Nobel Committee to give its so-called peace prize to the Venezuelan coup leader.
On August 26, 2024, several right-wing members of the US Congress sent the committee a letter (PDF).
âWe write to you in support of the nomination of MarĂa Corina Machado for the Nobel Peace Prizeâ, they said.
The signatories were all Republicans. They included Florida Senators Rick Scott and Marco Rubio and House Representatives Mario DĂaz-Balart, MarĂa Elvira Salazar, Michael âMikeâ Waltz, Neal Dunn, and Carlos A. Gimenez, along with the New York Representative Byron Donalds.
The 2024 letter sent by Republican US Congress members lobbying the Norwegian Nobel Committee to give the Nobel Peace Prize to Venezuelan coup leader MarĂa Corina Machado
Today, Rubio is the second-most powerful person in the US government after Trump. He is both secretary of state and national security advisor. (Rubio is the second person in US history to simultaneously hold both positions, after war criminal and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Henry Kissinger.)
Mike Waltz previously served as Trumpâs national security advisor, and now is US ambassador to the UN.
These are the US government officials who have been working closely with Machado and Venezuelaâs extreme, far-right opposition to try to violently overthrow President Maduro.
By giving Machado its âpeaceâ prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee demonstrated that it is willing to act as a tool of US empire, cynically exploiting the discourse of âpeaceâ in order to advocate for more war.
Ben Norton
Benjamin Norton is the founder and editor of the independent news website Multipolarista, where he does original reporting in both English and Spanish. Benjamin has reported from numerous countries, including Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras, Colombia, and more. His journalistic work has been published in dozens of media outlets, and he has done interviews on Sky News, Al Jazeera, Democracy Now, El Financiero Bloomberg, Al Mayadeen teleSUR, RT, TRT World, CGTN, Press TV, HispanTV, Sin Censura, and various TV channels in Mexico, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia. Benjamin writes a regular column for Al Mayadeen (in English and Spanish). He was formerly a reporter with the investigative journalism website The Grayzone, and previously produced the political podcast and video show Moderate Rebels. His personal website is BenNorton.com, and he tweets at @BenjaminNorton.
