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'Oil, Israel and Iran' Among Factors that Led to Georgia War
by Gl Ronen 10 Av 5768, August 11, '08 http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/127135
Analysis of the war in Georgia points to a fight over a major oil route as the main reason for hostilities, but also to an Israeli connection.

Channel 2's expert on the Muslim world, Ehud Ya'ari, told viewers of the central evening newscast that Russia and neighboring countries were vying for control of a strategic oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean. This relatively new pipeline passes through Azerbaijan and Georgia to Turkey and is the only pipeline between Asia and Europe that does not pass through Russia or Iran. Israel is expecting to receive oil and gas through the pipeline.

By using the ethnic Russian population in South Ossetia to destabilize Georgia, Russia was making a play for the pipeline, he said.

The Israeli Connection
The Georgian move against South Ossetia was motivated by political considerations having to do with Israel and Iran, according to Nfc. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili decided to assert control over the breakaway region in order to force Israel to reconsider its decision to cut back its support for Georgia's military.

Russian and Georgian media reported several days ago that Israel decided to stop its support for Georgia after Moscow made it clear to Jerusalem and Washington that Russia would respond to continued aid for Georgia by selling advanced anti-aircraft systems to Syria and Iran.

Hundreds of Israeli defense experts are reportedly in Georgia and Israel's military industries have been upgrading Georgia's air force, training its infantry and selling the country unmanned aerial vehicles and advanced artillery systems.

Former minister Ronny Milo was reportedly among the leading Israeli middlemen in the arms deals with Georgia and Brig.-Gen. Gal Hirsch has been training army units through a company he owns.

Russia nixes ceasefire
Georgia has ordered its forces to cease fire, and offered to start talks with Russia over an end to hostilities in South Ossetia, Georgian officials said Sunday. However, Russia has reportedly rejected the offer. Earlier in the day, Georgia said its troops had pulled out of the breakaway region and that Russian forces were in control of its capital, Tskhinvali. Georgian President Saakashvili said Sunday that his country's sovereignty is in danger.

After conducting consultations regarding events in Georgia, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Sunday that Israel "recognizes Georgia's territorial integrity." Israel also called for a peaceful resolution of the conflict between Russia and Georgia.


Russia bombs Israeli-run plant
Also on Sunday, Russia bombed a Georgian military plant in which Israeli experts are upgrading jet fighters for the Georgian military. According to Nfc, the bombing was a "sharp message" to Israel.

A Russian fighter jet bombed runways inside the plant, located near Tbilisi, where Israeli security firm Elbit is in charge of upgrading Georgian SU-25 jets.

Dozens Waiting to Make Aliyah from Georgia
Eight Jews were scheduled to arrive from Georgia to Israel Sunday evening and dozens more intend to make Aliyah to the Jewish state, once they finish the required paperwork. Representatives of Russian Aliyah agency Nativ will provide the Olim with Aliyah permits. The Georgian government claims Tbilisi's international airport was damaged Sunday after being bombed by Russian jets, and it is not clear if flights will be able to take off in the coming days.

Russia's foreign minister denied the Georgian claim, Russian news agency Interfax reported.
Russia is not denying reports that it bombed a military airport in a suburb of Tbilisi twice.

Russia: Western Media is Pro-Georgian
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gregory Karasin said Sunday that international and western press coverage of events in Georgia were biased in favor of the Georgians.

"The West behaved strangely in the first hours of the attack on South Ossetia," Karasin said, and added that "the U.S.A.'s negative attitude" would be "taken into consideration in the future in contacts about other global questions." The US says it will ask the United Nations to condemn Russia's actions in Georgia.


Israeli Has $1 Billion Invested in Georgia
9 Av 5768, August 10, '08 http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/151211


(IsraelNN.com) The Israeli-Georgia connection is estimated to be worth $1 billion, according to a former Georgian ambassador to Israel. The Jewish state and private investors have provided military assistance and advisors to Georgia, where pipelines pump oil destined for Israel. A new pipeline is being built to bypass Russian territory.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Israeli companies in Georgia have begun evacuating their staff and that Israeli tourists are leaving for home.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/127126 ... The fighting began when Georgian forces tried to retake the capital of the South Ossetia, a pro-Russian region that won de facto autonomy from Georgia in the early 1990s. Georgia's president, Mikheil Saakashvili, declared that Georgia was in a state of war, ordering government offices to work around the clock. He warned that Russia was planning a full-scale invasion of his country and asked for U.S. intervention...

Former Georgian: South Ossetia is like our Golan
August 10, 2008 by ABE SELIG http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1218104259179&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

As fighting between Russian and Georgian troops in the breakaway republic of South Ossetia continued to escalate on Sunday, feedback about the conflict from Russian and Georgian-Israelis seemed almost as complicated as the fighting that's raging between their countries.

In Neve Yaakov, a northern Jerusalem suburb home to many Georgian immigrants, support for their country remained high.
"South Ossetia is like our Golan Heights," said Sara Tzur, who was born in Georgia but came to Israel at a young age. "We're like the Israelis, and the Russians are like the Syrians - they want to take a mountainous, beautiful part of country away from us."

Tzur explained that while she has no problem with the Russians living in Israel, she is worried about her family members that remain in Georgia.

"Ninety percent of my family is here," she said, "But a few of them are still there in Gori, which is where a lot of fighting has been going on, we've been in touch with them, but it's hard to say what will be."

Down the street, Mordechai Achyashmini said the situation was troubling.

"I came here in 1974," he said. "And even then, they were fighting over South Ossetia. It comes as no surprise."

But Achyashmini also asserted that he had no problem with Russians or Ossetians, and that the problem was a political one, not ethnic.

"Even there, there were very few problems between us," he said. "The problem now is that a lot of people are being killed and people on both sides are losing family and friends. That is how long wars get started, and if Russia goes all the way in, they will cause a lot of damage."

Another Georgian woman, who preferred to remain unnamed, said she supported her native country but understood the Russian side.

"Georgia has to show that it's strong," she said, but Russia also has to make sure that these smaller countries around her know she is still in control. So I say, at what cost? If Georgia tries to take on Russia, they'll surely lose."

But inside a Russian bookstore in downtown Jerusalem, Baruch Sorokin had a different opinion.

"Ultimately the Russians will lose," he said of his former countrymen. "They say that a man who sits on a tank of gasoline shouldn't smoke, but that's exactly what the Russians are doing, they're sitting on top of Georgia and smoking."

Sorokin explained that in trying to exert their control over former Soviet satellite nations such as Georgia, the Russians were going into a fight that had been smoldering on the Georgian side for years.

While the South Ossetians are loyal to Moscow, Georgians as a whole resent Soviet rule to this day, and align themselves with the West in order to prevent Russian meddling in their affairs.

"Of course the Russians can win militarily," he said. "But they lost control over these regions when the Soviet Union collapsed, so going back and trying to show strength will only cause them distress, in the long-term."

Sorokin also gave three reasons for the current military flare-up, citing the Ossetian issue, political ramifications, including Russian animosity towards the West over what they saw as interference in Kosovo in the 1990's, and thirdly, what Sorokin stressed most of all, oil.

"There's an oil pipeline that runs through Azerbaijan and the Russians want control over it," he said. "If the Georgians gave them that, the Russians would stop fighting and abandon the Ossetians immediately. That's all they really want," he said smiling, "oil."

Nearby, inside the Five Brothers Plus Russian supermarket, other Russian immigrants chimed in.

"The Georgians say the Russians started it, the Russians say the Georgians started it, but who really knows?" asked Nina, as she worked at the butcher counter in the back. "All I know is they're fighting terribly there, and I feel bad for them, I love Georgians, they come in here all the time."

Another woman, Marina from Belarus, said she remembered the hatred for Georgians she heard growing up. "The Russians hate all of them," she said. "The Georgians the Caucasians, the Ossetians, it doesn't matter, they just want to control everyone."

But a second woman behind the butcher counter interrupted her, "You don't know what you're talking about. I'm from Moscow and my son still lives in Moscow, and as bad as they want to make us look, it's the government. The Russian government is doing what they please, the Russian people don't have anything to do with it."


Analysis: Back to the USSR
August 10, 2008 by ISABELLA GINOR AND GIDEON REMEZ
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1218104259162&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

As we write, reports are coming in that after a bombardment by Russia's aircraft, its tanks are advancing on the Georgian town of Gori - the birthplace of Iosif Djugashvili, better known as Stalin.
This throwback to the heyday of the Soviet Union is more than symbolic. Historical analogies are never perfect, but our sense of déjà vu was acute as we watched Moscow's Soviet-style move to reassert its domination of the USSR's former fief.

Moscow perceives a threat to its strategic interests from a small regional actor. It prods its neighboring clients to commit such provocations that the adversary is drawn into military action that "legitimizes" a massive, direct intervention to "defend the victims of aggression."

In our recent study Foxbats over Dimona: The Soviets' Nuclear Gamble in the Six-Day War, we demonstrated that this was the scenario employed by the USSR to instigate the 1967 conflict. Then, it was the unexpectedly devastating effect of Israel's preemptive strike that thwarted the planned Soviet intervention. Against Georgia this week, the ploy has so far worked much better.

As in our Middle Eastern precedent, a major motive for Moscow's move was to prevent its encirclement by nuclear-armed Western pacts. When the United States announced its intent to deploy missile defenses in the new NATO members Poland and the Czech Republic, Russia declared this to be a measure that would be met with a military response. Its alarm grew when President George W. Bush visited Ukraine and Georgia, inviting them, too, into NATO. But at the pact's summit in Bucharest in April, when the European allies demurred, Russia saw its chance - and pounced.

Georgia has assiduously courted US protection, if not a full NATO guarantee. It sent 2,000 soldiers to Iraq, who are being recalled to face the Russian invasion. Washington has provided Georgia with materiel and advisers, and so did Israel - at least until Russia pressed it to stop, reportedly in return for promises to withhold advanced weapons from Syria.

The South Ossetia separatists are already claiming US intervention - saying there are black people among the Georgian casualties. But even if some American personnel went discreetly into action, that would not suffice to deter Russia from bringing Georgia to heel, if not physically occupying the country. And then the Western loss will not be limited to the independence of a small, remote, struggling democracy.

Russia would achieve another strategic goal: regaining control of the vital flow of Caspian Sea oil to Western (and Israeli) consumers via pipelines that pass through Georgia to its own ports - now already blockaded by the Russian navy - and to Turkey's.

But Moscow's apparent disregard for the hitherto internationally sacrosanct borders and sovereignty of the 15 former Soviet Socialist Republics may have even farther-reaching consequences. Russia itself enjoyed immunity for its suppression of Chechnya's independence bid, as the latter was only an autonomous component of the Russian Federation. By the same token, South Ossetia and Abkhazia (where Russian marines have landed to assist separatists in opening a second front) are integral parts of Georgia. In calling these often-arbitrary borders into question, Russia has opened a vast Pandora's box.

Absent a resolute Western response, the next in line for Russian designs will be another would-be NATO candidate: Ukraine, which Moscow has already berated for backing Georgia. Ukraine's eastern mining and industrial regions are heavily populated by Russian-speakers; the Crimea, whence Ukraine seeks to eject the Russian Black Sea Fleet's main base, was part of Russia until the 1950s.

After "coming to the rescue of Russian citizens" in South Ossetia (locals who were issued Russian passports, or actual settlers from across the border), Moscow may demand the repatriation of its people from Ukraine - along with their land.

In respect to Israel, too, Russian leaders often proclaim a "special relationship" based on the "hundreds of thousands of Russian people" who reside here. This may still be far over the horizon - but you read it here first: Some day, a "representative delegation" of these "Russians" may invoke the Ossetian precedent to appeal for protection from Moscow. With a large part of the Russian fleet moved by then from Sevastopol, Crimea, to Tartus, Syria, such an intervention may be at least as feasible as in 1967.