During a joint press conference with Australian PM Anthony Albanese on Wednesday (US local time), the U.S. President Joe Biden made a remark that could potentially stir up quite some storm. The POTUS said that as per his ‘instinct’, one of the reasons behind Hamas’ attack on Israel was the recent announcement of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor. The war currently stands on its 20th day.
“I’m convinced one of the reasons Hamas attacked when they did, and I have no proof of this, just my instinct tells me, is because of the progress we were making towards regional integration for Israel, and regional integration overall. We can’t leave that work behind,”
Joe Biden, President of the United States
The ambitious project was announced during the 2023 G20 Summit in India and India, USA, UAE, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, Italy and the European Union signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish the IMEEC, which integrates the entire region with a network of rail, road, and ports. The corridor will encourage and provide impetus to economic development through enhanced connectivity and economic integration between Asia, West Asia, the Middle East and Europe.
The IMEEC will include a rail line, which upon completion, will provide a reliable and cost-effective cross-border ship-to-rail transit network to supplement the existing multi-modal transport routes enhancing transhipment of goods and services between South East Asia through India to West Asia/Middle East Europe.
This is the second incident in less than a week when Biden mentioned the IMEEC as a potential reason for the terrorist attack by Hamas. Israel has launched a massive counter-offensive against Hamas after unprecedented attacks by the militant group on October 7 killed more than 1,400 people.
