The Weekly Portion: Lessons from Georgia

Last week's major event took place one thousand and four hundred kilometers from here, in Georgia. Despite the distance, the war there has indirect implications for Israel and some important lessons for us.

The supposed cause of the war was the desire of two ethnic regions on the Georgia-Russia border to break away from Georgia: South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The real cause of the war was Georgia's desire to join NATO and the European Union, and Russia's desire to block such a move and destabilize the regime of Georgia's pro-Western President Saakashvili.

A rash action by Saakashvilli, a brutal response by Russia, and the grim results which we have all seen on TV.

What has the clash between Russia and Georgia shown us?

1. The world's response to the harming of citizens is selective and hypocritical. Had the IDF done in Gaza a tenth of what the Russians did in Georgia, the flood of criticism, condemnations and anti-Israel boycotts would have known no bounds. But when it's a superpower like Russia, all we see are feeble and polite expressions of regret.

2. Russia has gone back to behaving like the Soviet Union. This month marks the 40th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. What has changed?

3. The United States will not jeopardize its relationship with Russia to defend a small ally. Until now Saakashvili enjoyed total American and Western support. When he got into trouble with Russia, no Western country came to his defense. It was French President Nicolas Sarkozy who brought about the ceasefire, and it too isn't being kept.

This is the world we live in.

The lessons for us? A small country needs to know the limits of its power, and to apply it wisely when an essential national interest is at stake. We must also rely, in a time of need, only on ourselves - and build up our might in advance, on this principle.

And finally, an informative remark on the Israeli angle in this Russian-Georgian conflict.

The sale of advanced Russian weaponry (mainly new anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles) to Iran and Syria (and through them to the Hizbullah) took place before the Israeli supply of arms and know-how to the Georgian army.

The policy that the Ministry of Defense has followed in approving the arms deals with Georgia was balanced and correct.: on the one hand, readiness to train and improve the abilities of the Georgian Army and on the other hand, avoiding steps that would overly antagonize Russia.

We have no reason to beat ourselves up about this..