Israel-Georgia: no more crisis

Breaking news of Mikhail Saakashvili’s decision to amnesty Israeli businessmen Roni Fux and Zeyev Frenkel arrived in Israel last Friday. Both businessmen returned to their homeland the same evening. According to President Shimon Peres’ press-service this action was undertaken by the Georgian government in response to the president’s personal appeal.

After the amnesty Peres called his Georgian counterpart to thank him in person and said that now nothing stands in the way of the friendship that was characteristic of Georgian-Israeli relations.

In his turn, Saakashvili noted that the situation was uncomfortable for both sides and he was glad it was over. The Georgian President’s press-service reported that the prisoners were amnestied out of humanitarian concerns. However, that is evidently not the initial cause of this decision: Georgia’s appeal to the London Court of Arbitration was heard last week, and both sides agreed to compromise: Georgia has to pay 30 million dollars as a penalty for a failure to observe the terms of its contract with Fux’ company instead of a 100 million dollar fine, and the Israeli businessmen got their freedom in return. The whole story about the personal appeal of the Israeli President seems to have been just a means of saving face and distract public attention from this deal.

Hopefully, the year-long conflict between Israel and Georgia that ruined a number of important financial contracts and political visits is finally over, and Georgian-Israeli relations will once again enter an active phase.

It is interesting to note that a week before Fux’ liberation, the top Israeli paper ‘Yediot akhront’ published his prison diary. The businessman claims that at first he was treated tolerably but then, when the Georgian government decided to pressure him into giving up his compensation stipulated by London Court’s decision, the conditions of his imprisonment deteriorated rapidly. At the same time he said that he became a connoisseur of Georgian cuisine during his time in prison – so it seems the conditions were not so intolerable after all.

Peter Lukimson, exclusively to VK