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Israel Hopes New Data Cables Can Make Friends of Former Enemies
(Economist-UK) A high-speed, fiber-optic data cable is being laid under the Red Sea that will connect Israel to Saudi Arabia for the first time. The new link, part of two longer submarine cables running from France to India, promises to improve the speed and lower the cost at which information can whizz between Europe and Asia. It is also knitting together a new regional alliance between Israel and countries in the Gulf. The new data pipeline, being built by Google and Telecom Italia, is due to be finished in 2024. "For over seven decades all the Middle East's trade routes and communications networks bypassed Israel," says an Israeli official. "For the first time since Israel's establishment, we're becoming part of a regional infrastructure."