During a meeting in January, top European Union diplomats were left dumbfounded when Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz proposed a futuristic artificial island to distribute aid to war-ravaged Gaza.
Months later, US naval ships are steaming towards the Eastern Mediterranean to construct a “floating pier” that is set to receive aid from a real island, Cyprus, and send it onward to Gaza.
“There are similarities between the two ideas,” Shira Efron, director of research at the Israeli Policy Forum, told Middle East Eye.
Katz, who does not sit on Israel’s war cabinet and is known for tiresomely pushing pet projects, may want to take credit for the idea, analysts say. His other proposal – a 21st-century Hijaz railway connecting Israel and Saudi Arabia – was ceremoniously touted by the US just before the war in Gaza erupted…..more
