In 2018, Israel proposed a high-speed rail network called ‘Railways for Regional Peace’, connecting the Gulf states through Jordan to Israel’s Mediterranean ports1.
A May 2025 paper from the Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University confirms that this Israeli rail project became the template for a much larger initiative: the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, or IMEC2.
IMEC runs by sea from Indian ports to the Gulf, then by rail across Saudi Arabia, through Jordan, and into the Israeli port of Haifa. From Haifa, cargo crosses the Mediterranean to Greece or Italy and onward into Europe. Alongside the rail lines run electricity cables, hydrogen pipelines, and high-speed fibre optic cables.
Every flow passes through Israel. There is no bypass in the corridor’s design.
The corridors Israel bypasses
Iraq’s Development Road — the $17 billion project connecting Basra to Turkey, with Chinese engineering involvement — would have given the Eastern clearing system a land route bypassing both Hormuz and Israel32. The International North-South Transport Corridor, running from Mumbai to Moscow via Iran and Azerbaijan, is a second competing route33 — one that India’s own Director General of Maritime Administration describes as offering 30 per cent cost savings and 40 per cent faster transit34.
Both corridors bypass Israel. Both depend on Iranian territory or Iranian stability.
The war degrades both simultaneously. It sets the Development Road back by years and renders the INSTC unviable for as long as Iran’s infrastructure is under attack. Iran is the most important BRICS+ member in the Gulf region, and its military capacity was the one thing that made IMEC’s eastern sea lane unviable. Destroying that capacity clears the physical path, weakens both competing corridors, and forces the Gulf states to commit to the Western-backed system rather than continuing to hedge.
One military operation produces three strategic outcomes: IMEC’s eastern sea lane is secured, the Development Road is set back, and the INSTC is rendered unviable. In March 2026, a RAND economist told CNBC that ‘if Israel and the US win, IMEC will likely be Israel’s preference over the revival of Chabahar’35. Chatham House confirmed the Chabahar-Zahedan railway — a key INSTC component — faces ‘indefinite delays’.
Read full piece at link below:
https://escapekey.substack.com/p/railways-for-regional-peace
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