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(June 14, 2023 / JNS)
Israeli officials said on Monday that they are expected to work with the United Arab Emirates and another Arab country that has not yet made peace with Israel to build a communications corridor that will transmit digital data between Asia and Arab countries, and between Europe and the West via Israel.
An agreement for the project is expected to be signed in the coming months, the latest sign of growing economic ties between Israel and the UAE.
The proposal would see fiber optic cables laid along 250km Eurasian Pipeline Company The (EAPC) pipeline will be laid between Eilat and Ashkelon, while a two-way underwater cable will be laid between foreign countries and Israel, said Elad Marka, deputy director general of the Israeli Ministry of Communications.
Marka declined to name the other Arab countries expected to join the project in an interview with JNS.
Foreign companies will be responsible for the cable project from their countries to Israel, while Israeli companies will be responsible for the part inside Israel, he said.
“The Abraham Accords made this possible,” Malka said. “Before that, there was no one to connect with.”
The US-brokered Abraham Accords under the Trump administration saw Israel normalize relations with four Arab states: the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.
Previously, foreign countries had laid such cables in places such as Egypt and the Suez Canal, but there were many problems in the lines, including high costs.
“Israel’s geography is strategic both to the east and to the west,” Malka said.
The project, which has been in the planning stage for two years, is expected to be completed within four years and become economically self-sufficient, he said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the initiative would make Israel a global communications superpower and jump-start the Israeli economy.
“Today we are reaping more fruits of the historic Abraham Accords that we brought,” Netanyahu said in a statement on Sunday. “We will connect people from Asia, Arab countries, from Eilat Fiber optic cables to Ashkelon and the rest of the world. This will attract investors and turn Israel into a global communications hub.”
Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi added: “This is of course big news, especially for [Israel’s] Southern and surrounding cities. “
The prime minister’s office referred to the Spice Route, one of the most famous and important trade corridors of antiquity, stretching from southern Arabia to the coast of the Mediterranean. It was part of a network of trade routes between Europe and the East, transporting goods such as spices, silks, gems, dyes and exotic animals along the way.
“Today, in the modern digital world, the products are information, knowledge and technology,” the PMO said in a statement. “We are once again making the State of Israel a vital route to the world through which knowledge and information will be transmitted along the fiber optic cables linking Asia and Europe.”
Communication items are in a separate “power highway“, which will connect the national grids of Israel, Cyprus and Greece via the world’s longest and deepest underwater power cables.
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