JERUSALEM -- Israel was considering last weekend to suspend all further military shipments to embattled Georgia, fearing possible retaliation with Russia which is on good terms with two of the Jewish state's arch enemies in the region, Syria and Iran.

At the same time, approximately 200 Israeli-Georgians protested outside the American Embassy in Tel Aviv urging the United States to take stronger action against Russia's military intervention in Georgia and the breakaway enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

But the large Jewish-Georgian community in Israel was not the only group with a dog in the fight as the war between Georgia and Russia appeared to be intensifying, despite intensive diplomatic mediation by U.S. and European diplomats, urging both the Russian and Georgian leadership to implement a ceasefire.

Israel has been involved in both training and arming the Georgian military for a number of years and the fears within Israel's military establishment was that Russia, which already supplies arms to both Syria and Iran, could well decide to increase the quantity and quality of these supplies.

Israel's immediate concern is that Russia will proceed with the sale of the S-300 anti-aircraft missile system to Iran, which would help Iran defend its nuclear installations from aerial attack.

This would be particularly problematic if Israel decides to carry out a preemptive raid on Iran's nuclear facilities as it has been threatening to do for months now.

Israel's military complex has supplied Georgia with some $200 million worth of equipment since 2000. This has comprised rockets, night-vision communications and intelligence surveillance equipment, including Skylark mini-drones and Hermes 450 unmanned aerial vehicles. Israel also upgraded Georgia's Su-25 ground attack fighters.

A Russian jet shot down an Israeli-made drone being operated by the Georgians earlier this year.

The mayor of Tel Aviv, Ronnie Milo and his brother Shlomo (a former director-general of Israel Military Industries), were key players in the Georgian arms sales while senior IDF officers, including Maj. Gen. Israel Ziv and Brig. Gen. Gal Hirsch, were directly involved in training Georgian army infantry battalions.

Hirsch, who was a senior commander in the 2006 Lebanon war, served in an advisory capacity.

One of the Israeli advisers to the Georgian military, who wished to remain anonymous, had befriended some of the Georgian soldiers during his time there and was invited to some of their homes for dinner. He told the Israeli daily Haaretz: "We have their phone numbers, but we haven't been able to reach them. These are people we know and we are all hoping for their success,"

Meanwhile, other Israeli trainers are trying to glean from news reports on the movements of the Georgian army whether their trainees succeeded in internalizing Israeli military techniques.

Two key Georgian ministers are Jewish and fluent in Hebrew. The Georgian Defense Minister Davit Kezerashvili, 30, once lived in Israel after he immigrated to the country as a boy before eventually returning to Georgia.

Georgian Minister of Reintegration Temur Yakobashvili praised the Israel Defense Forces for its role in training Georgian troops and said Israel should be pleased with its military might, during an interview with Israeli Army Radio.

"Israel should be proud of its military which trained Georgian soldiers," Yakobashvili stated in fluent Hebrew.

He added that this training provided Georgia with the know-how needed to defend itself against Russian forces as he explained how a small group of Georgian soldiers had been able to wipe out an entire Russian military division due to the training, despite the inferiority of Georgia's defense forces when compared to Russia's.

"We killed 60 Russian soldiers," said Yakobashvili last week. "The Russians have lost more than 50 tanks, and we have shot down 11 of their planes. They have sustained enormous damage in terms of manpower."

However, Israeli ties to Georgia go further than the arms trade and military training business. Another Israeli interest in Georgia has revolved around the rich oil and gas deposits in the region.

Jerusalem is keen to see the Caspian oil and gas pipelines reach the Turkish terminal port of Ceyhan, rather than the Russian network after Russia turned down a previous Israeli request.

To this end intense negotiations are currently underway between Israel, Turkey, Georgia, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan for pipelines to reach Turkey and onward to Israel's oil terminal at Ashkelon and to its Red Sea port of Eilat. From there, supertankers can carry the gas and oil to the Far East through the Indian Ocean.

Finally, Israel works hard to increase the number of Jews immigrating to the country in an effort to lessen the "threat" of a demographic time-bomb which sees Israeli-Arabs and Palestinians in East Jerusalem with their higher birth rate as a possible threat to Jewish majority.

To this end the Jewish Agency, which arranges immigration, has organized flights into Georgia to evacuate Jews trapped in the cities as fighting intensifies. Indeed, Israel's national airline El Al was practically the only airline to fly into Georgia's capital Tbilisi after other flights were suspended or grounded.

Several hundred Jews were subsequently evacuated to Israel as new immigrants.