Jack Keane defends Israel’s military campaign, praises Netanyahu’s UN speech
Benjamin Netanyahu’s forceful address to the United Nations has drawn strong support, as Fox News senior strategic analyst Gen. Jack Keane joined Brian Kilmeade to assess the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. Keane emphasized Israel’s efforts to protect civilians, rejected allegations of genocide and described his recent 11-day trip to the region, including his observations of Gaza’s vast tunnel network. The retired general also condemned Hamas for using civilians as human shields during the war.
Navanethem “Navi” Pillay, the veteran jurist who chaired a United Nations commission that concluded Israel committed genocide in Gaza, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for “her efforts to promote peace and international law.”
The Nobel Committee said this year’s award reflected the importance of strong international judicial institutions capable of enforcing the rule of law—an essential condition for mediating the growing number of wars and conflicts around the world.
The committee also warned that political attacks targeting judges and international law itself have become increasingly common.
Pillay has built a long and distinguished career as both a lawyer and judge. In recent years, she has also taken a firm position on the war between Israel and Hamas.
Navi Pillay, who won the Nobel Peace Prize on Oct. 9, 2026, speaks during a briefing to UN member states about ongoing investigations by the Commission at the UN offices in Geneva on April 16, 2024. (Fabrice Coffrini / AFP)
She led the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, established in 2021 following a renewed surge in tensions between Israelis and Palestinians.
In September 2025, almost two years after the Oct. 7 attacks, the commission determined that Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. It also accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant of inciting genocide.
“It is clear that there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza through acts that meet the criteria set forth in the Genocide Convention,” Pillay said following the release of the commission’s report.
Israel rejected the findings at the time, describing them as “distorted and false.”
A view of the destruction following an Israeli attack on Khan Yunis, Gaza, Palestine, on Oct. 9, 2026. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, president of the Israel-based Shurat HaDin Law Center, questioned the Nobel Committee’s decision to honor Pillay with the Peace Prize.
“A peace prize should honor those who build peace, not those accused of turning Israel into a defendant in a campaign of political delegitimization,” said Darshan-Leitner, whose organization has organized protests against Pillay in Geneva. “What peace, exactly, has she brought? The Middle East remains engulfed in conflict, and the region is nowhere near the peace this prize supposedly celebrates.”
Pillay, 85, was born in South Africa’s Natal province to a Tamil Indian family. She entered the legal profession in 1967, when she established her own law firm and became the first non-white person in the province to do so.
Navi Pillay poses in her office at Palais Wilson, headquarters of the specialized UN agency, as she begins her post on Sept. 1, 2008, in Geneva. (Fabrice Coffrini / AFP)
Over 28 years as a defense attorney in South Africa, she represented activists opposed to apartheid. In 1973, she won a case that secured political prisoners on Robben Island, including Nelson Mandela, the right to consult with attorneys.
Two decades later, Mandela became president. In 1995, he nominated Pillay to South Africa’s High Court, making her the first non-white woman to serve on the court.
Her time on the bench was brief. That same year, the United Nations elected her to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which was created to prosecute those responsible for the Rwandan genocide.
Pillay played a key role in the case against Jean-Paul Akayesu, the mayor of the Rwandan town of Taba. Akayesu was convicted of inciting fellow Hutus to murder, rape and torture thousands of Tutsis.
On May 25, 1994, children stand beside a pile of machetes used to kill Tutsis in Rwanda. (Scott Peterson/Liaison)
That ruling set a precedent that rape constituted a crime against humanity and could amount to genocide when committed with the intent to destroy a targeted group.
“Rape had always been regarded as one of the spoils of war,” Pillay said after the verdict. “Now it is a war crime, no longer a trophy.”
In 2003, she was chosen to be a judge on the International Criminal Court (ICC), an institution frequently attacked by President Donald Trump as illegitimate.
Rockets are launched towards Israel from Gaza City on May 18, 2021. (Mahmud Hams/AFP via Getty Images)
After five years on the ICC, Pillay became the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2008. While in that position, she condemned both Israel and Hamas for their conduct in the 2014 Gaza War, saying both sides likely violated international law.
She also condemned the United States for providing funding to Israel’s Iron Dome program when “no such protection has been provided to Gazans against the shelling.”
Pillay currently serves as an ad hoc judge on the International Court of Justice, where she is hearing a case accusing Burma of committing genocide against the Rohingya, a predominantly Muslim minority in the Southeast Asian country.
