A Nobel Is Not a Precursor to Sainthood : Peace prize: It’s politics, often intended to nudge nascent reconciliation efforts.

When Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo this weekend, it won’t be the first time the prize has been the center of a storm of controversy. Of all the Nobel prizes, the peace prize has the potential to generate the greatest debate because it is, invariably, linked to politics.

Two other Nobel Peace Prizes of our time stirred extraordinary passion. Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho of North Vietnam shared the prize in 1973 for negotiating an end to a war both had prosecuted with some vigor. In 1985, the selection of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War drew furious protest because the group’s co-president, Yevgeny Chazov, was a high-ranking Soviet doctor who in 1972 had signed a letter critical of Andrei Sakharov, who was awarded the peace prize in 1975.

This year’s choice stirred controversy even before its formal announcement, and was followed by a series of events proving just how fragile the Middle East peace process is. Within hours of the announcement, an Israeli soldier who had been kidnaped by the anti-Arafat Hamas was executed. Within days, the Israeli-Jordanian peace accord was signed, a terrorist bomb exploded on a Tel Aviv bus killing dozens of civilians, and Syria’s President Hafez Assad, meeting with President Clinton, appeared to be making small steps toward peace with Israel. At the very least, critics said, the choice of Arafat, Rabin and Peres was premature.

While one might quarrel with this year’s selection, much of the debate flows from misconceptions about the prize itself.

The first misconception is that the Nobel Peace Prize is a secular form of sainthood. There is an implicit expectation that every recipient will be like Mother Teresa, a selfless servant without blemishes, contradictions or apparent ego. But these characteristics, no matter how appealing, are not prerequisites to peacemaking.

The second misconception is that the peace prize is a reward for good deeds. The prize is often a stick, not a carrot, used by the Nobel committee to send signals to governments, to rouse public opinion or to give momentum and recognition to fledgling efforts at reconciliation.

In citing the anti-nuclear physicians in 1985, for example, the Nobel committee explicitly linked the prize to ongoing disarmament negotiations in Geneva, hoping that the recognition of a Soviet-American organization would give new urgency to those talks and to an upcoming Reagan/Gorbachev summit.

With this year’s recipients, the committee is recognizing the first fragile steps taken by former adversaries. But, more important, the committee is encouraging the floundering Middle East peace process forward. The committee’s decision is, ultimately, a political one, not a moral one.

A third misconception about the prize involves the selection process itself. Though its ultimate choice is usually a closely guarded secret, the Nobel committee does not work in hermetic secrecy. It works year-round gathering information on nominees and surveying the global political landscape.

The committee is frequently the target of well-organized campaigns on behalf of some nominees. Any member of a national legislature, any previous recipient, any professor in the liberal arts and sciences can, with a simple letter, add a name to the list. What often lifts names to the top of the list is an orchestrated effort to garner the support of luminaries whose opinions may carry weight with the committee.

There are, to be sure, profound moral dimensions to the issues of war and peace, but analysis of the peace prize must recognize what it is. It is the world’s highest political honor, not a free pass through the pearly gates.