By Toni Nissi - President of the Committee for UN Security Council Resolutions for Lebanon
June 18, 2026
In the Middle East, we have become accustomed to speaking about Jerusalem through the lens of conflict. We speak of wars, borders, sovereignty, negotiations, occupation, and resistance. Yet the individual believer—the person who carries in his heart a longing for the Holy City—has become the last person whose rights are considered.
For me, the issue begins here.
I have the right to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
This is not a political slogan, nor a passing opinion. It is a natural, historical, human, and spiritual right.
I am not claiming sovereignty over the city. I am not seeking to deny sovereignty to anyone. Nor am I entering the competing narratives that have divided generations.
I am simply asserting my right, as a Middle Eastern Christian and a son of this region, to reach the city that witnessed the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ and from which the Christian message spread to the world.
I claim the same right for every Muslim who wishes to pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque and for every Jew who wishes to pray at the Western Wall.
These rights are not contradictory; they are complementary. Religious freedom is not diminished by the religious freedom of others—it is strengthened by it.
When I return to United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 of November 29, 1947, I find that the international community understood this reality from the very beginning.
The resolution did not place Jerusalem within the proposed Arab State nor within the proposed Jewish State. Instead, it established a special international regime for the city, creating a Corpus Separatum under United Nations administration, with guarantees for the protection of the Holy Places, existing religious rights, freedom of worship, and free access to all faiths.
That regime may never have been implemented because of the wars that followed, but the fundamental principle behind it remains valid today.
The world understood then that Jerusalem was not an ordinary city. It is the city of Jesus Christ. It is the city of Al-Isra and Al-Mi'raj. It is the city of the Temple. Above all, it is a city that belongs to the spiritual heritage of humanity.
For this reason, Jerusalem was considered an international concern from the outset.
This leads me to ask a question that the international community must answer today: If Resolution 181 recognized Jerusalem as an international issue in 1947, why should freedom of access to Jerusalem not become an international cause in the twenty-first century?
The Middle East has experimented with war for decades. It has experienced exclusion, confrontation, rejection, normalization, liberation movements, and resistance. Yet no one has succeeded in transforming Jerusalem into a city of peace. Perhaps because everyone sought to possess the city, while too few sought to make it accessible to all.
The region has entered a new era. The Abraham Accords have changed many equations. Recent conflicts have reshaped balances of power. Arab-Israeli relations are no longer governed by the same logic that prevailed for decades.
Yet one reality remains unchanged: no regional peace will ever be complete if Jerusalem remains an unresolved question. No lasting stability can be achieved if millions of believers continue to feel that access to their holy sites depends on political calculations and security tensions.
The time has come for a new approach. An approach that moves beyond the binary choices of war and surrender. Beyond the rhetoric of occupation and resistance. Beyond the slogans that have exhausted the region for generations. An approach that places the human being first. Freedom of worship first. The dignity of the believer first.
For this reason, I believe that any future peace agreement in the Middle East should contain a clear and binding commitment guaranteeing free access to Jerusalem's holy sites for all believers, protected by credible international guarantees insulated from political fluctuations and the consequences of war.
I also believe that the United Nations, the United States, Europe, and the countries of the region should launch a new international dialogue on the future of the Holy Places and on the mechanisms necessary to protect freedom of worship and access to them.
This issue exceeds the capacity of any single party. Just as the international community intervenes to preserve peace and security in various parts of the world, it should also help safeguard religious freedom in the most sensitive city on earth.
Here I see a parallel with Lebanon. Experience has shown that some issues cannot be resolved solely through local means because they transcend national borders and involve regional and international interests. Jerusalem is one of those issues.
It is not solely an Israeli issue. Nor solely a Palestinian issue. Nor solely an Arab issue. It is a global human issue.
For this reason, the debate cannot remain limited to the question of who governs the city. It must also address how we preserve its spiritual and universal mission.
In this context, I would like to address a direct message to the State of Israel.
If Israel regards Jerusalem as its united capital, and if it presents itself as a guardian of religious freedom and access to holy places, then a historic opportunity exists today to translate those principles into a global initiative for peace.
I call upon Israel to extend an official and explicit invitation to all peoples of the world and to all followers of the Abrahamic faiths to visit Jerusalem and pray there in freedom, security, and peace.
I call upon Israel to open the gates of the Holy City to all humanity—not as a battlefield of competing claims, but as a meeting place of peoples, cultures, and religions.
The strength of nations is not measured only by their ability to win wars. It is also measured by their ability to transform victories into opportunities for peace.
Today, Israel has a historic opportunity to send a different message to the region and to the world: that Jerusalem is not only a city of sovereignty, but also a city of peace.
At the same time, the responsibility does not rest on Israel alone. If such an invitation is extended, the world should answer it. The peoples of the region—beginning with the countries neighboring Israel—should have the courage to enter a new era of human, religious, and cultural engagement.
A Lebanese citizen should be able to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. A Syrian should be able to visit it. A Jordanian, an Egyptian, an Iraqi, a Gulf Arab, a Moroccan, and indeed every person of faith throughout the region should be able to reach it freely and with dignity.
Not as an act of political allegiance. But as an expression of respect for the sacredness of the place. Not as a surrender of national rights. But as a recognition of the universal right to access holy sites.
Experience has shown that boycotts did not end the conflict. Wars did not produce lasting peace. Human and spiritual encounters may be among the few paths that have not yet been fully explored.
For this reason, I propose the launch of a "Pilgrimage of Peace to Jerusalem" initiative, open to believers from all over the world, supported by international guarantees and designed to build trust among the peoples of the region.
Perhaps the road to peace in the Middle East is shorter than we imagine. Perhaps it begins with a simple step taken by a pilgrim carrying a prayer in his heart as he walks toward Jerusalem.
Holy cities should not be frontlines separating believers. They should be bridges connecting them. And when pilgrimage to Jerusalem becomes a guaranteed right for all, the city that has witnessed so many wars may finally become a beacon of peace.
True peace will not emerge from power alone. It will not emerge from imposing realities by force. Nor from waiting for the complete victory of one side over another.
True peace begins when a believer knows that the road to his place of prayer is open. It begins when people no longer fear for their religious identity. It begins when holy places become spaces of encounter rather than arenas of confrontation.
Jerusalem can become the clearest embodiment of this principle. A city where sovereignty is respected. Where the rights of people are respected. Where holy places are protected through international guarantees. And where the right to pilgrimage, prayer, and free access is secured for every believer.
If the twentieth century gave Jerusalem an international status through Resolution 181, then the twenty-first century should give it a new global mission: a city open to all believers and a bridge of peace between the peoples of the region and the world.
And so, I say: I have the right to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. And every Muslim, Christian, and Jew—and every person of faith—has the right to find a path to Jerusalem in freedom, dignity, and peace.
Perhaps this simple right is the key that can open the door to lasting peace for which the Middle East has waited far too long.