UJC Launches Georgia Campaign

Breaking News

Published: 08/13/2008

The United Jewish Communities has launched an emergency appeal for the embattled citizens of Georgia.

UJC has set up a mailbox to take donations in addition to a blog addressing the crisis. The organization's overseas partners, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the Jewish Agency for Israel, have been assisting the local Jewish community, a number of whom have made aliyah to Israel in recent days.

Georgia has been engulfed in crisis since Russian troops invaded and are now in control of half the country. It began last week in what Western leaders have described as an act of aggression aimed at destabilizing the country's democratic government. Though a truce was reached early Wednesday, Russian troops continue to occupy areas near the Georgian capital of Tbilisi and tensions are still running high.

IDF vets who trained Georgia troops say war with Russia is no surprise
Europe, dependent on Russian oil, unwilling to intervene in Georgia war, By Shoshana Bryen.

The Jewish Agency and the JDC have been particuarly assisting the Georgian Jews in Gori, a city near Tbilisi that has seen some of the fiercest fighting. On Wednesday, 34 Georgian Jews immigrated to Israel.

Donations to the campaign can be made online at www.ujc.org or mailed to P.O. Box 30, Old Chelsea Station, New York, NY 10113.


More Breaking News from JTA
An Israeli government official dismissed claims that the United States was withholding arms from Israel to dissuade the Jewish state from attacking Iran.
U.S. Sen. John McCain held a fundraiser in New Jersey organized by a pro-Israel political action committee.
Russia blames Georgia war on the Jews.
The United Jewish Communities has launched an emergency appeal for the embattled citizens of Georgia.
Longtime Israel critic Cynthia McKinney is the Green Party nominee for president.
Disturbing reports of abuse of ethnic Georgians in captured parts of the disputed region have emerged. A group of captive soldiers were paraded in the streets of the South Ossetian capital, Tskinvali, and the bodies of at least 40 dead troops rotted in the sun.
Teams of ethnic Georgians, some under armed guard, were forced to clean the streets. It was the first apparent evidence of humiliation or abuse of Georgians in the Russian-controlled breakaway republic.

August 16, 2008

Russia in nuclear threat to Poland
Catherine Philp and Tony Halpin in Tbilisi
Russia threatened Poland with a nuclear strike yesterday as the ripples of the Caucasus conflict spread through Europe and pitched West against East along new borders.

In a chilling echo of the Cold War, Russia gave warning that Poland was “exposing itself to a strike — 100 per cent” after signing a deal with the US to set up a missile shield on Polish soil.

The threat, the strongest since the fall of the Soviet Union, came as President Saakashvili of Georgia was forced to accept defeat as he signed a truce giving the Russian Army the right to patrol Georgian soil.

General Anatoli Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of the general staff in Moscow, said that Russian military doctrine sanctioned the use of nuclear weapons “against the allies of countries having nuclear weapons if they in some way help them”, as Poland had done in signing the deal.

Sunday, August 17, 2008 By Damien McElroy in Tbilisi.

In Ukraine, Fear Of Being A Resurgent Russia's Next Target
KIEV, Ukraine -- For 17 years now, several former satellites and republics of the Soviet Union have cherished their democracies, all made possible by the simple premise that the days of Russian dominance were over.
The events in Georgia over the past week have made them rethink that idea. Ukraine inflamed mounting East-West tensions yesterday by offering up a Soviet-built satellite facility as part of the European missile defence system.
The proposal, made amid growing outrage among Russia's neighbours over its military campaign in Georgia, could see Ukraine added to Moscow's nuclear hitlist. A Russian general declared Poland a target for its arsenal after Warsaw signed a deal with Washington to host interceptor missiles for America's anti-nuclear shield.

Russia claims pullback but forces move other way
Monday, Aug. 18
GORI, Georgia - Russia said Monday it had begun withdrawing from
the conflict zone in Georgia, but it held fast to key positions and
sent some of its troops in the opposite direction — closer to the Georgian capital.
American officials said the Russian military had been moving launchers for short-range ballistic missiles into South Ossetia, a step that appeared intended to tighten its hold on the breakaway territory.
Human Rights Watch reported that researchers witnessed "terrifying scenes of destruction" in four deserted ethnic Georgian villages, and said they the villages had been looted and burned by South Ossetian militias.

DEVIL SENT DOWN TO GEORGIA
RUSSIA UNLEASHES CHECHEN THUGS
OVER the weekend, photographic proof emerged that the Russians used mur derous Chechen mercenaries to do their dirtiest dirty work in Georgia:

Small Russian convoy leaves key Georgian city

Jewish Agency for Israel

Do what you are able to help those in need; Be they Jew or gentile, with the compassion of an open heart, and you will always be a friend of the Keeper!