The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) has died at its Israeli end. Gulf states and their allies are now racing to build rival lines.
In June, the Saudi and Turkish transport ministers signed memoranda to revive the Ottoman-era Hejaz railway as a corridor connecting their nations via Jordan and Syria - routed deliberately around Israel. And the UAE has opened talks on a trade route from the Syrian coast through Iraq to its own Gulf ports.
And in July, DP World signed a 50-year concession with the Fujairah authorities to build two terminals on the UAE’s Arabian Sea coast, the Al-Rughailat container port among them, expressly so cargo can be landed and moved on without ever passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
Both initiatives bypass the IMEC, which was announced at the G20 summit in New Delhi in September 2023 - four weeks before the Gaza war began - and whose entire premise was Haifa as the gateway to Europe.
Its backers still call it paused. But what is being built in its place sketches a regional order where trade is routed through everyone except Israel.
