Given the long list of its genocidal recipients, the Nobel Peace Prize was already considered by many as a sham award. But new laureate Maria Corina Machado outdid her peers by immediately dedicating her prize to Donald Trump and endorsing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his attack on Gaza and beyond.

Machado, the leader of the Venezuelan far-right, has previously called for a U.S. invasion of her own country and written to Netanyahu, asking him to intervene militarily in Venezuela.

While many were shocked, the news about Machado made Irish comedian Tadhg Hickey laugh. “I got a perverse pleasure out of it, he told Behind the Headlines host, Mnar Adley, today. “It is just the perfect piece of evidence that you would need for any young or older activist to illustrate to them that the world is now upside down.”

Hickey explained:

If this kind of person wins the Nobel Peace Prize, it is almost like the logical conclusion of neoliberalism. It is the final piece of the jigsaw to convince somebody that we are fighting for the world now. The people who rule the world are laughing at us. They’re making a laughingstock out of the idea of the Nobel Peace Prize.”

Tadhg Hickey is a writer, comedian, and filmmaker whose short videos satirizing Israel and Western governments have gone viral worldwide. Today, the pair discussed the Nobel Prizes, the slavish devotion to money of U2’s Bono, and the authoritarian crackdown on dissent across the United Kingdom.

“Bono is the most un-Irish person I can think of,” Hickey said, noting that the pop star had “sold his soul” to his own financial interests by selling out Palestine in the way he has. Hickey explained that most Irish people see great similarities between themselves and Palestine, stating:

If you don’t see the Palestinian struggle in the Irish struggle – they are so comparable in so many ways. The exact same colonial playbook that was used to dehumanize Irish people and to destroy Irish culture and Irish way of life is being meted out against the Palestinians right now, except on a scale that even the Irish can’t identify with.”

This solidarity is not fully extended to the Irish government, however, which has dragged its feet behind its citizens on this issue. Hickey explained that Ireland is “completely dependent” on the United States, to the point where it is almost a “vassal state” of Washington. “We’re so scared that if we piss off the U.S. and Donald Trump, then our economy will go to pieces overnight,” he said.

The Irish government’s position on Israel/Palestine, however, appears almost impressive in comparison to that of their neighbors across the Irish Sea. Today, English police arrested British-Palestinian NHS doctor Rahmeh Aladwan for the crime of “incitement” against Israel, and “implied support” of resistance forces, after she gave a speech at a pro-Palestine demonstration in London.

The arrest is the latest in literally thousands that have occurred across the country, as Keir Starmer’s government attempts to quash anti-Israel sentiment under the guise of fighting racism. The problem with Rahmeh for the U.K. government, Hickey told Adley, is that she is “unrepentant”:

What the British establishment and the Israel Lobby wants is repentance. They want us to say sorry for making their Zionist feelings a bit hurty. They want us to say sorry for being pro-Palestine and anti-genocide.”

Hickey advised that the last thing those in the pro-Palestine movement should do is try to make peace with Zionists, as that only leads to them further attacking you, citing the relentless hounding of former U.K. Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, as an example.

Don’t miss this lively discussion. It can be watched in full only at MintPress News.

Mnar Adley is an award-winning journalist and editor and is the founder and director of MintPress News. She is also president and director of the non-profit media organization Behind the Headlines. Adley also co-hosts the MintCast podcast and is a producer and host of the video series Behind The Headlines. Contact Mnar at mnar@mintpressnews.com or follow her on Twitter at @mnarmuh.

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