Pyotr Lukimson, Israel. Exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
The Foreign Ministry of Israel informs that the planned visit by the minister Avigdor Liebernam to Georgia in next two weeks will be postponed (not canceled). The informed sources in the Israeli Foreign Ministry state that cancelation of the visit is connected with the fact that Georgia voted for giving the status of the UN state-observer to Palestine.
Israel doesn't hide its disappointment with this position of the Georgian authorities and states that its diplomats think over certain steps against Georgia. According to employees of the Foreign Ministry, if Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia, Belarus, and other countries of post-Soviet area openly told Israel that they would support Palestine long before the voting, Georgians promised to abstain from voting until the last moment.
The Georgian side rejects these claims. The Foreign Ministry of Georgia states that the authorities of the country doubted ahead of the voting, but in the end decided to vote "for", and informed Israel, the USA, and the EU about this.
What exactly potential diplomatic steps against Georgia can be is not clear. Some Israeli observers suggested that Israel can take an open pro-Russian position in the problem of Abkhazia and South Ossetia's status. Experts say these predictions have nothing in common with reality.
A month ago the Israeli mass media paid close attention to the Israeli-Georgian business conference which was planned for December 6-9 and reported that a big delegation of Israeli businessmen would go to Tbilisi. However, now nobody is speaking about the results of the forum and even about the fact whether it was held at all or not. On December 12, an exhibition devoted to Hanukkha was opened in the National Library of the Georgian Parliament, but it seems no official representatives of Israel were present at the ceremony.
On the other hand, probably it is connected with the election campaign which is taking place in Israel today; all Israeli politicians are dealing with the elections. Therefore, Israeli-Georgian relations will become clear no sooner than January 22nd.
