Israel and Saudi Arabia to be linked by future railway – Netanyahu

Israel and Saudi Arabia can be linked by a future railway the opening leg of which Israel is embarking on now with a NIS 100 billion project to construct a high-speed train linking Kiryat Shmona in Israel’s north with its furthermost southern city of Eilat, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday.

“Today we are launching the "One Israel" project - connecting the entire country by high-speed train from Kiryat Shmona to Eilat,” Netanyahu said prior to his government’s approval of the project at its weekly meeting in Jerusalem.

He linked that project with the potential of an Israeli-Saudi normalization deal, which is expected to be part of any deal between Riyadh and Washington that is now under discussion between those two capitals. 

“In the future, we will be able to transport cargoes of goods by train from Eilat to our ports in the Mediterranean Sea, and we will also be able to connect Israel by train to Saudi Arabia and the Arabian Peninsula. We are working on that too,” Netanyahu said.

The project will also have a revolutionary impact domestically and environmentally, he said.

Expediting and easing travel in Israel

“My vision is that every citizen in the country will be able to get to and from the center, from anywhere in the country - in less than two hours.

“In most cases in less than an hour - and even less. No traffic jams, no air pollution, no parking problems - comfortably and safely,” he said.

He spoke just two days after US President Joe Biden told supporters at a 2024 campaign event in Freeport Main. On Thursday New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman published a column explaining that Biden was mulling a major security pact with Riyadh.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, one of Biden's most trusted aides, was in Jeddah last week with Middle East envoy Brett McGurk discussing the possibility of a normalization deal, according to White House officials. A Saudi-Israel normalization deal would be part of any such agreement between Washington and Riyadh.

In an interview with Army Radio, however, Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman MK Yuli Edelstein (Likud) said he thought it was premature to think of an Israeli-Saudi deal in the near future.

”I think it's too early to talk about a deal being in the works," Edelstein said.

He referenced the possibility that Israel might have to pay a heft price with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in order to arrive at such a deal.

"How shall I put this delicately? There are clauses that are far more important or problematic than such-and-such declarations in the Palestinian realm," he said.

"Most of of the Saudi discourse is with the Americans, and not with us," he added, saying that when it came to Riyadh's demands of Washington, "there are some things we can live with better, and some things we can live with less well."

Israeli National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi, asked by reporters as he entered the weekly cabinet meeting whether there would be progress in the Saudi talks,” said: "I hope so."

Reuters contributed to this report.