Recently, Prime Minister Netanyahu of Prime Minister of Israel announced a huge railway construction project with a cost of about 27 billion US dollars. It is planned to connect Shemona, a border city in the north of Israel, and Eilat, a coastal city in the Gulf of Aqaba in the south, with a total length of about 400 kilometers.

The infrastructure project is called an Israel, which will connect remote areas with the Tel Aviv metropolitan area. Netanyahu stated that "transportation initiatives are an important step in building an advanced and prosperous country, coupled with measures such as openness and simplified planning, to truly bring about change." His vision is to enable every Israeli to travel from anywhere in the country to the city center within two hours, in most cases in less than an hour, Even shorter. At the same time, Netanyahu also stressed that he would strive to achieve the goal of connecting Saudi Arabia and the Arabian Peninsula by railway.

In recent years, the population of Demographics of Israel has grown at a high speed. Nearly half of the population has gathered in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, causing traffic congestion and soaring housing prices. In May, the Israeli cabinet just approved the railway development plan for 2022-2026. This Israeli plan has pushed the railway construction to a larger scale, which is enough to show that the Netanyahu government attaches great importance to the construction of Israeli infrastructure, but the financing plan for this project has not been finalized.

Two days ago, US National Security Advisor Sullivan visited Saudi Arabia to discuss the possibility of establishing formal relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. This is also another visit to Saudi Arabia by senior US officials after Sullivan and Antony Blinken visited Saudi Arabia in early June. The frequent involvement of the United States in Saudi Israeli relations is clearly aimed at continuing to exert its influence in the Middle East and seeking deep participation in the economic and security benefits brought to the United States by the normalization of Saudi Israeli relations in the context of "peace and tide resolution". In May 2023, national security advisors from the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and India discussed strategic infrastructure projects such as the Middle East Railway. Their intention to use diplomacy to promote regional integration in the Middle East, strengthen regional presence through economic and technological means, and compensate for the decline in influence caused by weakened regional security needs has become very clear.Editor/Ma Xue