I Want to Visit Haifa Without Fear: A Lebanese Voice for Peace

I am from southern Lebanon. I am Lebanese by origin and a school leader by profession. And I want to visit Haifa.

In the region I come from, that sentence alone is enough to raise suspicion. To some, it signals weakness. To others, betrayal. Wanting peace has been reframed as something dangerous, while escalation is treated as inevitable.

This reversal of values has cost all of us dearly.

I want to walk through an Israeli city without fear. I want to visit Israeli schools, speak with principals and teachers, sit in classrooms, and observe how schools are led. I want to meet Israelis not as political abstractions or media narratives, but as people. As an academically engaged school leader, I also want to be able to visit Israeli universities and engage in conversations about education, research, and the future of our region. This is not an ideological statement. It is a human one.

Yet even imagining such a visit feels forbidden. As a Lebanese, my freedom to think in these terms has been taken hostage.

For years, Lebanon has been dragged into repeated cycles of confrontation by a heavily armed non‑state actor that answers neither to voters nor to state institutions. This is not a policy chosen by the Lebanese people. It is the steady erosion of sovereignty through intimidation and force. Decisions of war and peace are made without mandate, without public consent, and without accountability.

This must be stated plainly. Many Lebanese do not want war with Israel. We did not choose it, and we are not consulted about it. We simply live with its consequences.

Israeli civilians, meanwhile, live under the constant threat of rockets and sudden escalation. Lebanese civilians face a different but related reality. Our lives can be upended overnight by decisions taken in our name, yet entirely beyond our control. This is not a competition of suffering. It is a shared tragedy produced by political paralysis and armed dominance.

As a school leader, I understand the consequences deeply. Schools are meant to provide stability, safety, and a sense of future. Prolonged conflict does the opposite. It narrows imagination, prioritizes survival over leadership, and normalizes insecurity. When war becomes permanent, instability becomes routine, and that may be its most corrosive effect on the next generation.

This is why Haifa matters to me. Not as a symbol, but as a real city. A place where Jews and Arabs live in close proximity in an imperfect and often tense, yet tangible, reality. Coexistence there is practiced daily rather than proclaimed. Wanting to visit Haifa does not mean ignoring conflict or difficult histories. It means insisting that another way of living already exists and deserves to be protected.

Peace is not simple. Anyone who claims otherwise is not serious. There are deep wounds, legitimate Israeli security concerns, unresolved disputes, and regional actors who benefit from permanent confrontation. But complexity cannot become an excuse for paralysis. The alternative, endless escalation without political accountability, has already failed repeatedly.

For that reason, direct dialogue between Lebanese and Israeli leadership should not be considered radical. It is the minimum requirement of responsible politics. Relying solely on indirect channels and deniability preserves a status quo measured in civilian trauma on both sides of the border. Direct meetings will not deliver immediate peace, but they would restore responsibility. Leaders would have to speak in their own voices and confront the human cost of continued avoidance.

This also requires honesty on the Lebanese side. For decades, political leaders in Lebanon have avoided their historical and moral responsibility to restore full state authority and protect citizens’ freedom of movement, speech, and choice. The fact that a Lebanese civilian cannot freely visit an Israeli city is not only a regional failure. It is a domestic one as well.

In this context, a serious American role in facilitating direct dialogue is not only legitimate but necessary. Not to dictate outcomes, but to make evasion harder and accountability unavoidable. When trust does not exist, credible mediation becomes a necessity rather than an intrusion.

Responsibility, however, does not rest with governments alone.

So I address Israeli readers directly. Not as enemies or negotiators, but as neighbors, friends, and fellow human beings who were never meant to be enemies in the first place.

If I, a Lebanese school leader who understands the personal and professional risks of speaking publicly, can state clearly that I want peace, are you willing to meet me halfway?

Not through slogans or conferences, but through something radically ordinary.

Will we drink coffee together in Haifa soon?

Because the day that question stops sounding provocative and starts sounding practical, something fundamental will have shifted. Until then, speaking openly despite fear and taboos is the least we owe future generations and ourselves.

Peace will not come easily. But it will never come at all if those who want it remain silent.