Syrian Civil War Reopens Trade Route Through Israeli Port
The port city of Haifa, once a major gateway to the Near East, is regaining some of its lost commercial importance thanks to the Syrian war.
HAIFA, Israel — Under Ottoman and British rule, the port city of Haifa, nestled between the Mediterranean Sea and Mount Carmel, was a major gateway to the Near East, a multiethnic entrepôt where merchants met and goods flowed to and from Damascus, Baghdad and beyond. The creation of Israel in 1948 and the consequent conflict with the Arab world, however, severed Haifa from much of its economic hinterland. Today another war is helping it regain some of its lost commercial importance and perhaps in the process changing the geopolitical calculus of the region.
On May 27, a convoy of 30 trucks carrying fresh fruits and vegetables from the Turkish city of Iskenderun rolled off the 7,084-ton Kibris Yildiz anchored in Haifa and formed a line on one of the docks. The Turkish drivers lazed about in the sun for hours, chatting, smoking and occasionally facing Mecca to pray while waiting for the signal to move. When word finally came, the men jumped in their 12-wheelers and drove, in groups of 10, some 50 miles through the fertile Jezreel Valley to the border with Jordan, their final destination. The convoys were part of a new trade route that opened seven months ago to circumvent the war in nearby Syria.
“There's no other alternative right now,” said a representative for Tiran, the Israeli shipping company operating the line. Speaking on condition of anonymity due to political sensitivities, he added, “If [traders] need to move fast, and they have raw materials, and they don't want the cargo handled again, this is the only option.”
Until recently, goods traveled overland between Turkey, to the north, and Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf, to the south, but the fighting in Syria and instability in Iraq have severed these lines. As the Washington Post reported on May 24, a roundabout route through Egypt and the Suez Canal has picked up most of the traffic, but it can take about three weeks for containers to arrive at their port of call, making it undesirable for transporting perishable or delicate products.
