[News] Tel Aviv to Tbilisi: Israel's role in the Russia-Georgia war

[Anti-Imperialist News]

2 Articles follow:

Tel Aviv to Tbilisi: Israel's role in the Russia-Georgia war

Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 12 August 2008
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9756.shtml

[]

Israelis wave both Georgian and Israeli flags as 
they chant anti-Russian slogans during a 
demonstration outside the Russian embassy in Tel 
Aviv, 11 August. (Gali Tibbon/AFP/Getty Images)

 From the moment Georgia launched a surprise 
attack on the tiny breakaway region of South 
Ossetia last week, prompting a fierce Russian 
counterattack, Israel has been trying to distance 
itself from the conflict. This is understandable: 
with Georgian forces on the retreat, large 
numbers of civilians killed and injured, and 
Russia's fury unabated, Israel's deep involvement is severely embarrassing.

The collapse of the Georgian offensive represents 
not only a disaster for that country and its 
US-backed leaders, but another blow to the myth 
of Israel's military prestige and prowess. Worse, 
Israel fears that Russia could retaliate by 
stepping up its military assistance to Israel's adversaries including Iran.

"Israel is following with great concern the 
developments in South Ossetia and Abkhazia and 
hopes the violence will end," its foreign 
ministry said, adding with uncharacteristic 
doveishness, "Israel recognizes the territorial 
integrity of Georgia and calls for a peaceful solution."

Tbilisi's top diplomat in Tel Aviv complained 
about the lackluster Israeli response to his 
country's predicament and perhaps overestimating 
Israeli influence, called for Israeli "diplomatic 
pressure on Moscow." Just like Israel, the 
diplomat said, Georgia is fighting a war on 
"terrorism." Israeli officials politely told the 
Georgians that "the address for that type of 
pressure was Washington" (Herb Keinon, "Tbilisi 
wants Israel to pressure Russia," The Jerusalem Post, 11 August 2008).

While Israel was keen to downplay its role, 
Georgia perhaps hoped that flattery might draw 
Israel further in. Georgian minister Temur 
Yakobashvili -- whom the Israeli daily Haaretz 
stressed was Jewish -- told Israeli army radio 
that "Israel should be proud of its military 
which trained Georgian soldiers." Yakobashvili 
claimed rather implausibly, according to Haaretz, 
that "a small group of Georgian soldiers were 
able to wipe out an entire Russian military 
division, thanks to the Israeli training" 
("Georgian minister tells Israel Radio: Thanks to 
Israeli training, we're fending off Russian 
military," Haaretz, 11 August 2008).

Since 2000, Israel has sold hundreds of millions 
of dollars in arms and combat training to 
Georgia. Weapons included guns, ammunition, 
shells, tactical missile systems, antiaircraft 
systems, automatic turrets for armored vehicles, 
electronic equipment and remotely piloted 
aircraft. These sales were authorized by the 
Israeli defense ministry (Arie Egozi, "War in 
Georgia: The Israeli connection," Ynet, 10 August 2008).

Training also involved officers from Israel's 
Shin Bet secret service -- which has for decades 
carried out extrajudicial executions and torture 
of Palestinians in the occupied territories -- 
the Israeli police, and the country's major arms companies Elbit and Rafael.

The Tel Aviv-Tbilisi military axis appears to 
have been cemented at the highest levels, and 
according to YNet, "The fact that Georgia's 
defense minister, Davit Kezerashvili, is a former 
Israeli who is fluent in Hebrew contributed to 
this cooperation." Others involved in the brisk 
arms trade included former Israeli minister and 
Tel Aviv mayor Roni Milo as well as several senior Israeli military officers.

The key liaison was Reserve Brigadier General Gal 
Hirsch who commanded Israeli forces on the border 
with Lebanon during the July 2006 Second Lebanon 
War. (Yossi Melman, "Georgia Violence - A frozen 
alliance," Haaretz, 10 August 2008). He resigned 
from the army after the Winograd commission 
severely criticized Israel's conduct of its war 
against Lebanon and an internal Israeli army 
investigation blamed Hirsch for the seizure of two soldiers by Hizballah.

According to one of the Israeli combat trainers, 
an officer in an "elite" Israel army unit, Hirsch 
and colleagues would sometimes personally 
supervise the training of Georgian forces which 
included "house-to-house fighting." The training 
was carried out through several "private" 
companies with close links to the Israeli military.

As the violence raged in Georgia, the trainer was 
desperately trying to contact his former Georgian 
students on the battlefront via mobile phone: the 
Israelis wanted to know whether the Georgians had 
"internalized Israeli military technique and if 
the special reconnaissance forces have chalked up 
any successes" (Jonathan Lis and Moti Katz, "IDF 
vets who trained Georgia troops say war with 
Russia is no surprise," Haaretz, 11 August 2008).

Yet on the ground, the Israeli-trained Georgian 
forces, perhaps unsurprisingly overwhelmed by the 
Russians, have done little to redeem the image of 
Israel's military following its defeat by Hizballah's in July-August 2006.

The question remains as to why Israel was 
involved in the first place. There are several 
reasons. The first is simply economic 
opportunism: for years, especially since the 11 
September 2001 attacks, arms exports and 
"security expertise" have been one of Israel's 
growth industries. But the close Israeli 
involvement in a region Russia considers to be of 
vital interest suggests that Israel might have 
been acting as part of the broader US scheme to 
encircle Russia and contain its reemerging power.

Since the end of the Cold War, the US has been 
steadily encroaching on Russia's borders and 
expanding NATO in a manner the Kremlin considers 
highly provocative. Shortly after coming into 
office, the Bush Administration tore up the 
Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty and, like the 
Clinton administration, adopted former Soviet 
satellite states as its own, using them to base 
an anti-missile system Russia views as a threat. 
In addition to their "global war on terror," 
hawks in Washington have recently been talking up a new Cold War with Russia.

Georgia was an eager volunteer in this effort and 
has learned quickly the correct rhetoric: one 
Georgian minister claimed that "every bomb that 
falls on our heads is an attack on democracy, on 
the European Union and on America." Georgia has 
been trying to join NATO, and sent 2,000 soldiers 
to help the US occupy Iraq. It may have hoped 
that once war started this loyalty would be 
rewarded with the kind of round-the-clock airlift 
of weapons that Israel receives from the US 
during its wars. Instead so far the US only 
helped airlift the Georgian troops from Iraq back 
to the beleaguered home front.

By helping Georgia, Israel may have been doing 
its part to duplicate its own experience in 
assisting the eastward expansion of the 
"Euro-Atlantic" empire. While supporting Georgia 
was certainly risky for Israel, given the 
possible Russian reaction, it has a compelling 
reason to intervene in a region that is heavily 
contested by global powers. Israel must 
constantly reinvent itself as an "asset" to 
American power if it is to maintain the US 
support that ensures its survival as a 
settler-colonial enclave in the Middle East. It 
is a familiar role; in the 1970s and 1980s, at 
the behest of Washington, Israel helped South 
Africa's apartheid regime fight Soviet-supported 
insurgencies in South African-occupied Namibia 
and Angola, and it trained right-wing US-allied 
death squads fighting left-wing governments and 
movements in Central America. After 2001, Israel 
marketed itself as an expert on combating "Islamic terrorism."

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez recently 
denounced Colombia - long one of the largest 
recipients of US military aid after Israel -- as 
the "Israel of Latin America." Georgia's 
government, to the detriment of its people, may 
have tried to play the role of the "Israel of the 
Caucasus" -- a loyal servant of US ambitions in 
that region -- and lost the gamble. Playing with 
empires is dangerous for a small country.

As for Israel itself, with the Bush Doctrine 
having failed to give birth to the "new Middle 
East" that the US needs to maintain its power in 
the region against growing resistance, an ever 
more desperate and rogue Israel must look for 
opportunities to prove its worth elsewhere. That 
is a dangerous and scary thing.

Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, Ali 
Abunimah is author of 
<http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/store/548.shtml>One 
Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli- 
Palestinian Impasse (Metropolitan Books, 2006).

**************************************************************************

http://www.counterpunch.org/walberg08122008.html
August 12, 2008


How the U.S. Invited a War in South Ossetia


War a la Carte

By ERIC WALBERG

Last week, Georgia launched a major military 
offensive against the rebel province South 
Ossetia, just hours after President Mikheil 
Saakashvili had announced a unilateral ceasefire. 
Close to 1,500 have been killed, Russian 
officials say. Thirty thousand refugees, mostly 
women and children, streamed across the border 
into the North Ossetian capital Vladikavkaz in Russia.

The timing ­ and subterfuge ­ suggest the 
unscrupulous Saakashvili was counting on 
surprise. “Most decision makers have gone for the 
holidays,” he said in an interview with CNN. 
“Brilliant moment to attack a small country.” 
Apparently he was referring to Russia invading 
Georgia, despite the fact that it was Georgia 
which had just launched a full-scale invasion of 
the “small country” South Ossetia, while Russian 
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was in Beijing for 
the Olympics. Twenty-seven Russian peacekeepers 
and troops have been killed and 150 wounded so 
far, many when their barracks were shelled by 
Georgian forces at the start of the invasion. 
Georgian State Minister for Reintegration Temur 
Yakobashvili rushed to announce that their 
mini-blitzkreig had destroyed ten Russian combat 
planes (Russia says two) and that Georgian troops 
were in full control of the capital Tskhinvali.

Russia’s Defense Ministry denounced the Georgian 
attack as a “dirty adventure.” From Beijing, 
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said, “It 
is regrettable that on the day before the opening 
of the Olympic Games, the Georgian authorities 
have undertaken aggressive actions in South 
Ossetia.” He later added, “War has started.” 
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev vowed that 
Moscow will protect Russian citizens ­ most South 
Ossetians hold Russian passports. The offensive 
prompted Moscow to send in 150 tanks, to launch 
air strikes on nearby Gori and military sites, 
and to order warships to Georgia’s Black Sea coast.

Georgia’s national security council declared a 
state of war with Russia and a full military 
mobilization. US military planes are already 
flying Georgia’s 2,000 troops in Iraq ­ the 
third-largest force after the United States and 
Britain ­ back to confront the Russians. By 
Sunday, despite early claims of victory, Georgian 
troops had retreated from South Ossetia, leaving 
diplomatic rubble behind which will be very hard 
to clear. Truth is stranger than fiction in Georgia.

The writing has been on the wall for months. 
Georgian President Saakashvili’s fawning over 
Western leaders at the “emergency” NATO meeting 
in April and his pre-election anti-Russian 
bluster in May made it clear to all that Georgia 
is the more-than-willing canary in the Eastern 
mine shaft. The Georgian attack on South 
Ossetia’s capital Tskhinvali ­ I repeat ­ just 
hours after Saakashvili declared a cease-fire, 
looks very much like an attempt to reincorporate 
the rebel province into Georgia unilaterally. But 
whoever is advising the brash young president 
ignores the postscript ­ no pasaran! South 
Ossetia has been independent for 16 years and is 
not likely to drape flowers on invading Georgia 
tanks. It also just happens to have Russia as patron.

The aftershocks of this wild gamble by 
Saakashvili are just beginning. This is Russia’s 
most serious altercation with a foreign country 
since the collapse of the Soviet Union and could 
escalate into an all-out war engulfing much of 
the Caucasus region. Russian warships are not 
planning to block shipments of oil from Georgia’s 
Black Sea port of Poti, Russian Deputy Foreign 
Minister Grigory Karasin said on Sunday, but 
reserve the right to search ships coming to and 
from it. Another source naval source said, “The 
crews are assigned the task to not allow arms and 
military hardware supplies to reach Georgia by 
sea.” The Russians have already sunk a Georgian 
missile boat that was trying to attack Russian 
ships. Upping the ante, Ukraine said it reserved 
the right to bar Russian warships from returning 
to their nominally Ukrainian ­ formerly Russian ­ 
base of Sevastopol , on the Crimean peninsula. On 
Saturday, Russia accused Ukraine of “arming the Georgians to the teeth.”

Georgia’s other separatist region, Abkhazia, was 
mobilizing its forces for a push into the Kodori 
Gorge, the only part of Abkhazia controlled by 
Georgia. “No dialogue is possible with the 
current Georgian leadership,” said Abkhazia’s 
President Sergei Bagapsh. “They are state 
criminals who must be tried for the crimes 
committed in South Ossetia, the genocide of the 
Ossetian people.” Britain has ordered its 
nationals to leave Georgia. British charity 
worker Sian Davis said, “It’s really, really 
quiet, eerily quiet. Everyone was either at home 
or had packed up and moved out of the city. 
People are really, really scared. People are 
panicking.” So far the more than 2,000 US 
nationals in this tiny but strategic country are mostly staying put.

This is yet another made-in-the-USA war. US 
President George W Bush loudly supported 
Georgia’s request to join NATO in April, much to 
the consternation of European leaders. NATO 
promised to send advisers in December. Not losing 
any time, the US sent more than 1,000 US Marines 
and soldiers to the Vaziani military base on the 
South Ossetian border in July “to teach combat 
skills to Georgian troops.” The UN Security 
Council failed to reach an agreement on the 
current crisis after three emergency meetings. A 
Russian-drafted statement that called on Georgia 
and the separatists to “renounce the use of 
force” was vetoed by the US, UK and France. To 
dispel any conceivable doubt, Secretary of State 
Condoleezza Rice said Friday: “We call on Russia 
to cease attacks on Georgia by aircraft and 
missiles, respect Georgia’s territorial 
integrity, and withdraw its ground combat forces from Georgian soil.”

But it’s also yet another made-in-Israel war. A 
thousand military advisers from Israeli security 
firms have been training the country’s armed 
forces and were deeply involved in the Georgian 
army’s preparations to attack and capture the 
capital of South Ossetia, according to the 
Israeli web site Debkafiles which has close links 
with the regime’s intelligence and military 
sources. Haaretz reported that Yakobashvili told 
Army Radio ­ in Hebrew, “ Israel should be proud 
of its military which trained Georgian soldiers.” 
“We killed 60 Russian soldiers just yesterday,” 
he boasted on Monday. “The Russians have lost 
more than 50 tanks, and we have shot down 11 of 
their planes. They have enormous damage in terms 
of manpower.” He warned that the Russians would 
try and open another battlefront in Abkhazia and 
denied reports that the Georgian army was 
retreating. “The Georgian forces are not 
retreating. We move our military according to security needs.”

Israelis are active in real estate, tourism, 
gaming, military manufacturing and security 
consulting in Georgia, including former Tel Aviv 
mayor Roni Milo and Likudite and gambling 
operator Reuven Gavrieli. “The Russians don't 
look kindly on the military cooperation of 
Israeli firms with the Georgian army, and as far 
as I know, Israelis doing security consulting 
left Georgia in the past few days because of the 
events there,” the former Israeli ambassador to 
Georgia and Armenia, Baruch Ben Neria, said 
yesterday. Since his posting, Ben Neria has 
represented Rafael Advanced Defense Systems in Georgia .

By Sunday, Putin was in Vladikavkaz and said it 
is unlikely South Ossetia will ever be 
reintegrated into Georgia. There are really only 
two possible scenarios to end the conflict: a 
long-term stalemate or Russian annexation of 
South Ossetia. The former is beginning to look 
pretty good, and Saakashvili is probably already 
ruing his rash move. The Georgian president is 
clearly hoping he can suck the US into the 
conflict. Alexander Lomaya, secretary of 
Georgia’s National Security Council, said only 
Western intervention could prevent all-out war. 
But it is very unlikely Bush will risk WWIII over 
this scrap of craggy mountain.

When US puppets get out of line, like a certain 
Saddam Hussein, they are easily abandoned. 
Saakashvili would be wise to recall the fate of 
the first post-Soviet Georgian president, Zviad 
Gamsakhurdia, also a darling of the US (in 1978 
US Congress nominated him for the Nobel Peace 
Prize). He rode to victory on a wave of 
nationalism in 1990, declaring independence for 
Georgia and officially recognizing the “Chechen 
Republic of Ichkeria”. But South Ossetia wanted 
no part of the fiery Gamsakhurdia’s chauvinistic 
vision and declared its own “independence”. 
Engulfed by a wave of disgust a short two years 
later, abandoned by his US friends, he fled to 
his beloved Ichkeria. He snuck back into western 
Georgia, looking for support in restive Abkhazia, 
but his uprising collapsed, prompting Abkhazia to secede.

Gamsakhurdia died in 1993, leaving the two 
secessionist provinces as a legacy, and was 
buried in Chechnya. Saakashvili rehabilitated him 
in 2004 and had his remains interred in 
Mtatsminda Pantheon with other Georgian “heroes”. 
Truth really is stranger than fiction in Georgia. 
Now the burning question is: will history repeat itself?

Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly. You can reach him at
<http://www.geocities.com/walberg2002/>www.geocities.com/walberg2002/




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