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

Ali Abunimah The Electronic Intifada - August 11, 2008
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 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 One Country: A Bold Proposal to
End the Israeli- Palestinian Impasse (Metropolitan Books, 2006).