“…you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good…” (Gen. 50:20)

Many of the world’s top shipping companies have announced they will not traverse the Red Sea so long as Houthi forces in Yemen are attacking any vessel with even the fastest connection to Israel.

That’s a major blow to international shipping, both of commercial goods, as well as critical resources like oil.

The Houthis hope in this way to directly harm Israel’s economy and to create even more international pressure on the Jewish state as prices in the West rise.

But the scheme appears to be backfiring.

An Israeli startup seized on the opportunity by establishing a “land bridge” for the transport of goods from Dubai via Saudi Arabia and Jordan to ports in Israel or Egypt, from where they can then be shipped on to Europe.

Eilat-based Trucknet has already signed agreements with similar logistics companies in the United Arab Emirates and Egypt to facilitate the plan.

A pilot phase of bi-directional shipping along this route has already been going on for weeks.

The company that would enable the planned land bridge that will offer an alternative to the Suez Canal

Hanan Fridman, CEO of Trucknet Enterprise Ltd explains the problems and opportunities pic.twitter.com/E4s8fjvnij

— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) December 26, 2023

Trucknet said it is not trying to replace the Suez Canal shipping route, but to add a complementary route and an alternative for times like this when bad actors are disrupting normal economic activity.

At the same time, this land bridge is bringing Israel even closer economically to its new friends in the Arab world, and could turn Israel into a major shipping hub with all those goods and resources from the East passing through Israeli ports.

Not the impact the Houthis hoped to have.