Can Israel's Eilat become an alternative to Suez Canal? A vessel stuck in the Suez Canal disrupted the global supply chain. Israel has long talked about offering shippers a Red Sea-Mediterranean rail link, but neither the economics nor the politics look promising Israel Fisher | Apr. 1, 2021 Back in 2012, the cabinet voted to construct a railway line to Eilat that would provide passenger and freight service. But subsequent studies showed that the project isn’t economically feasible and it seems that it’s been shelved. […] “It’s not economically feasible – Eilat doesn’t have the room for it,” said Dr. Oded Eran, a senior researcher at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies and a former ambassador to Jordan and the European Union. The entire shoreline between the adjacent Jordanian port of Aqaba and Taba in Egypt is just 13.5 kilometers, he noted. “We have to decide what we prefer to do from economic and other perspectives, such as quality of environment and pollution. When you examine the alternatives, further development of the port looks less worthwhile,” Eran said. “Also, the blocking of the canal is an event that happens once in dozens of years.” Even if Eilat Port was expanded, a railway wouldn’t be able to handle the cargo required to make it work. “If you consider the quantity of goods that were stuck in Suez over those six days and compare them to what could be moved over a long railway line between Eilat and Ashkelon-Ashdod, you’d discover that the railway would be able to handle no more than a few hundred containers – not the 20,000 that one giant cargo ship holds,” he said. Eran also raised the political dimension of Israel’s creating competition to the Suez Canal. “The Egyptians see any alternative to the Suez Canal as damaging their national economic interests,” he said. … for full article: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/suez-canal-ship-eilat-can-t-become-alternative- global-shipping-1.9668705 .