RIA Novosti, August 8 - Moscow: Georgia claims control over most of South Ossetia in major attack.

Georgia  and  Israel - Haaretz, Aug.10 - Official: Georgia withdraws troops from South Ossetia - Georgia has withdrawn its forces from breakaway South Ossetia, where they had been fighting Russian troops for control, the Georgian interior ministry said on Sunday…………..

Meanwhile, the Foreign Ministry has recommended a complete halt to the sale of arms and any security-related equipment to Georgia in light of the recent fighting with Russian forces in the Caucasus. This would be a further tightening of an arms boycott on Tbilisi around a year after a decision had been made in Jerusalem to limit exports to Georgia only to defensive equipment.

Israel is concerned that Russia would choose to retaliate against Jerusalem for continued military support of Georgia by lifting restrictions on its arms transfers to Iran and Arab states.

"Israel needs to be very careful and sensitive these days," said a senior political source. "The Russians are selling many arms to Iran and Syria and there is no need to offer them an excuse to sell even more advanced weapons."

The source noted that Israel is particularly interested in the transfer of advanced S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Iran, and therefore Jerusalem must show restraint in its arm sales to Georgia……

However, the security ties between the two countries have received a great deal of media attention, in part because of the capture, on film, of a Russian jet downing an Israeli-made drone in Georgian service, and the role that senior retired Israeli officers have played as advisers to the Georgian security forces.
  
War in Georgia: The Israeli connection - For past seven years, Israeli companies have been helping Georgian army to prepare for war against Russia through arms deals, training of infantry units and security advice

S. Ossetia says over 1,000 dead after Georgian attack - North Ossetia is part of Russia. … - Georgian military forces have begun retreating from the capital, Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian information and press committee said.

The statement also said that most of the city had been devastated by the Georgian military attack, which left the hospital destroyed and the republic's university on fire.
   
AFP - Economist, August 8 - War erupts in Georgia - A war between Russia and Georgia appears to be under way - Georgian soldiers, tanks and fighter-planes struck Tskhinvali, the capital of the breakaway (Russian-backed) region of South Ossetia, on Friday August 8th. Parts of the city were reported to be burning as Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili, declared that his forces had “freed” much of the area from separatist control.

The immediate cause of the fighting is unclear as claim and counterclaim abound. But what is clear is that a conflict which has been simmering for years, has at last erupted. What happens next will depend almost entirely on Russia’s response: 150 Russian tanks were reported to be entering South Ossetia on Friday.

Georgia's government says that Russian planes have dropped bombs outside of South Ossetia including on the edge of Tblisi, the Georgian capital. Alexander Lomaia, the secretary of Georgia's National Security Council, told The Economist on Friday that “this is an open military aggression and we are now at the state of undeclared war with Russia. What else could you call it?”. He also said that Georgia had announced a ceasefire in South Ossetia from 3pm on Friday.

On its own, South Ossetia is unlikely to last long. It is a tiny territory run by Russia’s security forces and a small and nasty clique of local thugs who live off smuggling goods and pocketing Russian aid money. According to a Georgian television channel, some 70% of Tskhinvali had been taken by government forces by the end of Friday morning.

It appears that Russia will get heavily involved—Russia's president, Dmitry Medvedev, says that he must protect Russian citizens there. The conflict could now quickly spiral into a war between Russian and Georgia, and engulf Abkhazia, a separatist region on the Black Sea coast in which Russia has much more strategic interest.

Russia says that Georgia fired first in South Ossetia and that several of its “peacekeepers” inside the territory have been killed. Last month Russia sent warplanes into Georgian airspace—to deter an attack, it said.
 
The row has given Russia a chance to step up pressure on Georgia, portrayed in the Russian media as a tiresome and aggressive Western stooge. The South Ossetian leader, Eduard Kokoity, said that he would force Georgian troops out of his self-declared republic (which is a patchwork of villages and small towns, some controlled by Georgian authorities and others by separatists).

The quarrel in South Ossetia follows an escalation of tension in Abkhazia. Russia has reinforced its military presence there, which is nominally part of a UN-monitored peacekeeping effort. In the past few months European governments got more involved in the peace process and Germany drafted a plan for the economic revival of Abkhazia, indefinite autonomy and the return of Georgian refugees. So far the plan has stalled.

The Abkhaz authorities are uneasy about the Russian embrace, but fear the return of Georgian refugees, once the largest ethnic group in the region. Russia does not want to surrender its key role in Abkhazia.

As Russian gets involved in the war with Georgia, the disposition of political forces within the Kremlin itself may shift. Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is in China, indicated that Russia would retaliate against Georgia’s aggression. Mr Medvedev may not be best pleased to start his presidency with a war in Georgia: it suggests that he may have to submit to the wishes of the hard-line military and security services. But Mr Putin has a fierce dislike of Mr Saakashvili, Georgia’s maverick president, and seems determined to replace his government.

Mr Putin may also want to deal with Georgia in good time before Russia hosts 2014 winter Olympic games in Sochi, a Black-sea resort town only few miles from the Abkhaz border. A military conflict in Georgia will also derail for a long time Georgia’s aspiration to join NATO—something that Russian finds deeply unpalatable.

Russia’s broader aim may be to try to roll back the advance of pro-Western forces in its “near abroad” by highlighting the West’s inability to help Georgia. The hotting up of Georgia’s conflicts coincided with Kosovo’s declaration of independence, recognized by much of the West, and American pressure for the expansion of NATO to Georgia and Ukraine.

That move has been stymied, mainly by Germany; Georgia was promised eventual NATO membership but no firm plan. Though Georgia has become a vital corridor for oil and gas exports to Europe, this has not brought the support that its leaders had expected. A lame-duck American administration has been able to do little, though Georgians hope a presidential-election victory by John McCain, an ardent supporter, may change their fortunes.

The country’s strong-willed and idiosyncratic president, Mr Saakashvili, is not seen by all European leaders as quite the paragon of legality, freedom and reform that he claims to be. Georgia’s image was severely dented in November last year by a crackdown against the opposition.
   
New York Times, August 9 - Russia and Georgia Clash Over Separatist Region - Gori, Georgia - Russia conducted airstrikes on Georgian targets on Friday evening, escalating the conflict in a separatist area of Georgia that is shaping into a test of the power and military reach of an emboldened Kremlin. Earlier in the day, Russian troops and armored vehicles had rolled into South Ossetia, supporting the breakaway region in its bitter conflict with Georgia.

The United States and other Western nations, joined by NATO, condemned the violence and demanded a cease-fire. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice went a step further, calling on Russia to withdraw its forces. But the Russian soldiers remained, and Georgian officials reported at least one airstrike, on the Black Sea port of Poti, late on Friday night.
   
Jerusalem Post, August 11 - Putin slams US for airlifting Georgian troops from Iraq - …Putin said that the US move would hamper efforts to solve Russia's conflict with Georgia over the breakaway province of South Ossetia.

The US military has started flying 2,000 Georgian troops home from Iraq after Georgia recalled them.
Meanwhile, Georgia asked the European Union to freeze strategic partnership talks with Russia unless Moscow halts its military campaign against its small neighbour.
   
Infolive, August 10 - When Media Dictates World Events - Russian Media Prepared Ground For Georgia Hostilities Weeks Ago - Russia expanded its bombing Sunday against neighbouring Georgia, targeting the country's capital for the first time bombing Tbilisi's international airport. On Sunday morning, Georgia announced it had pulled its troops out of South Ossetia under heavy Russian shelling, however Russian military commanders on the ground denied the reports.

There are those who question Russia's powerful media and its ability to dictate the news it seeks to portray to the world, allowing it to build up the current conflict, days before battles erupted on the ground
               
August 11 - How Israel Has Helped Georgia Train Troops And Supply It With Weapons

New York Times, Aug.11 - Georgia and Russia Nearing All-Out War - Gori, Georgia — The conflict between Russia and the former Soviet republic of Georgia moved toward full-scale war on Saturday, as Russia sent warships to land ground troops in the disputed territory of Abkhazia and broadened its bombing campaign to the Georgian capital’s airport.

The fighting that had sharply escalated when Georgian forces tried to retake the capital of South Ossetia, a pro-Russian region that won de facto autonomy from Georgia in the early 1990s, appeared to be developing into the worst clashes between Russia and a foreign military since the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

Economist, Aug.10 - In search of a resolution to the war in Georgia, and other news - Russia and Georgia have agreed to form humanitarian corridors to arrange for the evacuation of civilians caught up in fighting in South Ossetia. Amid ongoing uncertainty, Georgia now says that it has withdrawn troops from South Ossetia, where they had been battling Russian soldiers. The coming days will see whether the conflict is snuffed out quickly, or whether further escalation is likely.

Economist, Aug.11 - Russia has the upper hand - Russia has extended the conflict to a war inside Georgia. The West will have a hard time responding.

Russia sees its actions as having a parallel in Kosovo. In 1999, NATO fought a war to protect the Albanian-majority province of Yugoslavia from a Serbian crackdown, despite Russian opposition. This year, many western countries recognized Kosovo’s declaration of independence, while somehow suggesting that Kosovo should not set any precedent. Russia claims to see in South Ossetia a friendly and oppressed region seeking independence from a larger country.
But the disproportionate Russian response signals far more than concern for hard-pressed South Ossetians (and Russia’s “citizens”, South Ossetians recently given Russian passports). It may be a naked challenge to the West: Russia expects the response to be no more than diplomatic manoeuvres.

Russia may also be seeking the removal from power of Mr Saakashvili, sending a signal to other countries on its periphery that, in breaking from Russia and moving westwards, they are playing a dangerous game. That signal is coming through loud and clear.

Georgia  and  Israel - Jerusalem Post - Some 200 Jews living near the town Gori, on the South Ossetia border, were advised to evacuate to the Georgian capital after the outbreak of hostilities with Russia, according to a Jewish Agency statement released Saturday - The statement added that most of the Jews had heeded the warnings and were en route to Tbilisi, and that the rest of the country's 12,000 Jews reside mainly in the area of the capital.

The Jewish Agency advised that it was working in full coordination with the Foreign Ministry, which on Saturday advised Israelis not to travel to Georgia, and urged any Israelis currently in the area to contact the ministry.
   
Jerusalem Post, Aug.11 - Jewish Agency Assists Last Jews To Leave Battle Stricken Gory, Facilitates The Aliya Of Georgian Jews To Israel - Israeli Tourists And A Handful Of New Immigrants Arrive In Israel from Georgia. Flights for stranded Israelis delayed. Two special flights from Georgia scheduled to take stranded Israelis home from the war-stricken region on Monday were delayed.

Although the Georgian National Airlines flights were authorized by Israel, Georgian authorities had not yet given permission for the planes to take off from Tbilisi.
An airline company representative had told Israel Radio that anyone with a return ticket to Israel would be allowed on the flight, irrespective of which company had originally issued the ticket.

Earlier, Eddie Shapira, the Foreign Ministry's spokesman to the Russian media, said there were some 100 Israelis still in Georgia and that the ministry was working to get them out, either by air or by land.
He told Israel Radio that most of the Israelis were in Tbilisi and none of them were in the conflict zones. Meanwhile, many Jews in the region were seeking to immigrate to Israel.
   
Jewish Agency for Israel/ IMRA - 200 Jews Evacuated from South Ossetian Border; 2/3 of Georgian Jews Now in Israel - Michael Jankelowitz - Since the outbreak of hostilities in Georgia, the Jewish Agency for Israel has assisted some 200 Jews living near the town Gori, on the South Ossetian border, to evacuate to Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, where most of the rest of the country's 12,000 Jews reside.

Since 1989, 23,287 individuals have immigrated to Israel from Georgia. In 2007 there were 324 new immigrants compared with 260 immigrants in 2006.
   
Haaretz, Aug.10 - Official: Georgia withdraws troops from South Ossetia - Georgia has withdrawn its forces from breakaway South Ossetia, where they had been fighting Russian troops for control, the Georgian interior ministry said on Sunday…………..

Meanwhile, the Foreign Ministry has recommended a complete halt to the sale of arms and any security-related equipment to Georgia in light of the recent fighting with Russian forces in the Caucasus. This would be a further tightening of an arms boycott on Tbilisi around a year after a decision had been made in Jerusalem to limit exports to Georgia only to defensive equipment.

Israel is concerned that Russia would choose to retaliate against Jerusalem for continued military support of Georgia by lifting restrictions on its arms transfers to Iran and Arab states.

"Israel needs to be very careful and sensitive these days," said a senior political source. "The Russians are selling many arms to Iran and Syria and there is no need to offer them an excuse to sell even more advanced weapons."

The source noted that Israel is particularly interested in the transfer of advanced S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Iran, and therefore Jerusalem must show restraint in its arm sales to Georgia……

However, the security ties between the two countries have received a great deal of media attention, in part because of the capture, on film, of a Russian jet downing an Israeli-made drone in Georgian service, and the role that senior retired Israeli officers have played as advisers to the Georgian security forces.
  
Yedioth Aharonoth - War in Georgia: The Israeli connection - For past seven years, Israeli companies have been helping Georgian army to prepare for war against Russia through arms deals, training of infantry units and security advice
   
Jerusalem Post - Israel Tiptoes Around Georgian-Russian Conflict - Herb Keinon - Although Israeli companies have sold arms to Tbilisi and trained units of the Georgian army, there is not a significant Israeli component to the Georgian-Russian flare-up.

Both the Georgians and the Russians know that the estimated $300-500 million in weapons and training that Israel has sold to Georgia over the last decade is not what has equipped the Georgians for a war with Russia. Numerous other countries, including the U.S., France and Ukraine, have sold arms and allowed ex-officers to help train the military there.
   
Although for historic, emotional and sentimental reasons, the Israeli tendency is to back the pro-Western, pro-American Georgians - the David in this fight - Israel has a real strategic interest in not infuriating the Russians.

Moscow is a major supplier of arms to Syria and Iran, and Israel would like to keep Russia from selling arms to those two countries that could tilt the region's strategic balance. If Moscow took the gloves off, they could sell much more dangerous weapons systems to our neighbours, such as land-to-land missiles. It should be noted that the much-discussed sale to Iran of the S-300 multi-target anti-aircraft-missile system, one of the most advanced in the world, has not yet gone through.

Jerusalem Post, Aug.10 - Analysis: What is the conflict in Georgia really about? - "Timing has nothing to do with it. We're defending Georgian citizens on Georgian soil," said Lasha Zhianov, chairman of the Georgian parliament's foreign relations committee.
When Georgian troops marched into the South Ossetia capital, they were laying claim to a region which has been part of Georgia for many decades.

South Ossetia has an autonomous government protected by Russia, which rules over a population ethnically distinct from the Georgian majority. South Ossetia's total population does not exceed 70,000 people, who live in villages scattered through the tiny, mountainous province.

The hostilities between Georgia and Russia, which both sides claim have included aerial bombardment by the other side, are not about South Ossetia itself.

For Russia the fighting is for greater control and influence over countries in its "near abroad." For Georgia it's about staking out an independent position. But the conflict is also significant to a number of international audiences.

Georgia and Russia have been in a state of detente for years now - so what drove the Georgian government of Mikhail Saakashailli to set a match to the tinder-box against such an overwhelmingly dominant opponent? Zhianov maintains Georgia was merely defending its territorial integrity, but leaves unexplained the simple fact that Georgia started the fight this time around.

The answer, many Georgian observers say, lies in the American election cycle. The Bush White House has been a close friend to Georgia, a country that is host to one of the world's most important oil pipelines and which lies close to the border corridor to both Afghanistan and Iran.

With the possibility that the Bush administration will be replaced by one with a less aggressive foreign policy, Georgia might believe that its ability to resist Russia's ambitions of regional dominance will be severely weakened when Bush leaves office.

Iran, too, is watching closely and asking itself whether the American military, a dominant force in the region, is backed by the political stomach for confrontation.

The question in this conflict is not whether either Georgia or Russia is correct - Georgia's arguments against dissolution along ethnic lines are identical to those made by Russia regarding Kosovo and Chechnya - rather, the question is whether or not the West is still a relevant presence in the Caucasus and, by extension, all of central Asia.

Some watching the events unfold believe that granting Russia control over its near abroad - including tiny Georgia - is a fitting price to pay for Russian cooperation on the more urgent question, Iran.

But if the world's strategy for containing the Islamic Republic's nuclear ambitions is to effect a psychological and political change in Teheran, the perception of Western and American weakness in coming to Georgia's defence achieves the opposite.

Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, travels to the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Friday August 15th for a meeting with Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s president, amid uncertainty about the conflict in Georgia - Subjects set for discussion have not been revealed, but the question of NATO membership for Ukraine has strained relations between Russia and countries in Western Europe recently. Mr Medvedev is sure to remind the German leader of Europe’s strong dependence on Russian oil and gas.