Gaza War: Preparing the Facts for the Ben-Gurion Canal?

The Suez Canal is a vital barrier to world trade, but is under Egyptian control. An alternative is the Ben-Gurion Canal project through Israel and beyond the Gaza Strip. But as long as the Palestinians remain there, there will be a constant threat from Hamas. Occupying the area will change the situation. Is this all just a conspiracy theory, or is it just fact?

It is speculated that one of the reasons behind Israel’s desire to expel Hamas from Gaza and completely control the Palestinian territory is to allow itself to pursue a dramatic economic opportunity that has been discussed for decades. The idea is to cut a channel through the Israeli-controlled Negev desert from the end of the Gulf of Aqaba – the eastern arm of the Red Sea that is Israel’s southernmost point and southwest of Jordan – to the eastern Mediterranean coast. It would create an alternative to the Egypt-controlled Suez Canal, which begins at the Western Branch of the Red Sea and runs from the northern Sinai Peninsula to the southeastern Mediterranean Sea.

Depending on the map, the canal either passes directly along the Gaza Strip’s northern border – or directly through it. The Suez Canal, through which a significant portion of world trade still flows to and from Europe and North Africa, will lose economic weight as a result of this new waterway. However, this would also weaken the position of Egypt, which on the one hand receives huge financial and military assistance from the United States, but on the other hand is considered an “unreliable” partner, as Cairo also maintains good relations with Moscow. And Beijing. “Armstrong Economics” reports:

Declassified documents indicate that the US Department of Energy planned extreme measures to enable this channel. On July 1, 1963, a plan was drawn up to build an Israeli canal by detonating 520 underground nuclear explosions throughout the Negev desert. “Such a canal would be a strategically valuable alternative to today’s Suez Canal and would likely contribute greatly to the economic development of the surrounding region,” the declassified document said.

The document says 130 miles of the 160 miles dedicated to the canal are “virtually unpopulated desert wasteland”, but the main issue will be the resettlement of people from Gaza. “Another issue that was not considered is that of political feasibility, as Arab countries surrounding Israel might have strong objections to the construction of such a canal,” the declassified papers show.