Emirati diplomat, whose family holds keys to Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, enters UN secretary-general race

(Oct. 22, 2026 / JNS)

Lana Nusseibeh, an Emirati diplomat whose family history runs through Jerusalem, entered the stalled race for United Nations secretary-general on Wednesday.

Rebeca Grynspan, a Jew and former vice president of Costa Rica, has won five of the six secret-ballot straw polls that the U.N. Security Council has held to determine the next head of the global body.

But in a poll taken on Oct. 16, the first in which the five veto-holding members of the council used color-coded ballots, Grynspan drew negative votes from two of those five, suggesting she may be unable to secure the nomination.

None of the other candidates have come close to Grynspan, and multiple permanent council members have raised objections to each of the others. Time is ticking down to the Dec. 31 conclusion of António Guterres’s term as secretary-general.

Enter Nusseibeh, who said that she is taking a leave of absence from her position as United Arab Emirates minister of state to the United Nations and European Union.

“I have spent much of my professional life working in and around the United Nations, and I have seen first-hand what determined diplomacy can achieve,” she stated, announcing her candidacy, which the Emirati government backed.

“Countries with profound differences finding common ground, and agreement where people said agreement was impossible,” she stated. “I have also seen the cost when diplomacy falls short. When the distance between what we promise and what we deliver grows, trust erodes and so does our ability to act.”

Nusseibeh served as the Emirati ambassador to the global body from 2013 to 2024, which included the period when Israel and the United Arab Emirates normalized relations.

Her family, considered Jerusalem’s oldest Muslim dynasty, arrived in the seventh century of the Common Era and remains the keyholders to Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre, one of Christianity’s holiest sites.

JNS asked Danny Danon, Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, about Nusseibeh’s entrance in the race.

“After António Guterres oversaw one of the worst tenures in the history of the United Nations, the State of Israel is closely following the race to select the next U.N. secretary-general,” Danon said.

“Unlike Guterres, the next secretary-general must have a strong moral compass and have to take decisive action to combat institutionalized antisemitism within the United Nations,” he said.

The Israeli envoy has not commented on specific candidates when JNS has asked in the past.

At times heavily critical of Israel in line with wider sentiment in the Arab world, Nusseibeh has engaged regularly with the global Jewish community. She holds a master’s degree in Israeli and Jewish diaspora studies from SOAS University of London.

Grynspan has reportedly been unable to convince the United States to back her, though Washington will not confirm that.

Nusseibeh, whose Emirati government is close to the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, may be able to overcome that hurdle.