Saudi Arabia would like a significant change in the proposed India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) to sideline Israel from the trade initiative, two people familiar with the matter have told The Jerusalem Post. It wants to reroute the corridor through Syria instead, they said.
The IMEC, unveiled by former US president Joe Biden during the G20 Summit in New Delhi in September 2023, was conceived as a transformative infrastructure and trade project to link India with Europe through the Persian Gulf and the Eastern Mediterranean.
The initiative envisioned a network of railways, ports, and shipping lanes, connecting India to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, and Greece. It would provide a faster alternative to traditional maritime routes while strengthening economic integration across the region.
From its inception, Israel’s role in IMEC was viewed as inseparable from a broader US-backed effort to broker normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Under the original blueprint, freight would travel by rail from Saudi Arabia through Jordan into Israel before being shipped to European markets via the Port of Haifa, positioning Israel as a critical logistical gateway between Asia and Europe.
But nearly three years after the project was announced, the regional landscape has changed dramatically. The Israel-Hamas War and the collapse of momentum toward Israeli-Saudi normalization have forced Saudi Arabia to reassess the route of the project.
Saudi officials are now actively examining alternatives that would remove Israel from the corridor, the two sources said.
One of the leading options under discussion would redirect the railway through Syria, creating a land bridge from the Gulf to the Mediterranean without passing through Israeli territory, they said.
This reflects Saudi’s willingness to explore new regional alignments, as prospects for normalization with Israel remain uncertain, and the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf, and Bab-el-Mandeb Strait are becoming unstable, they added.
A potential railway through Syria
“They are contemplating different options,” a source told the Post. “One of them is Syria.”
The Saudis’ decision underscores how shifting geopolitical realities are reshaping one of the most ambitious connectivity projects launched in recent years.
If implemented, rerouting the IMEC through Syria would represent a major strategic setback for Israel, which had expected the corridor to become both an economic asset and a cornerstone of deeper regional integration, following a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia.