Now look here, Fouad

The Lebanese Army on Wednesday fired warning shots at IDF troops, claiming that the troops had entered Lebanese territory.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora on Thursday denounced what he called Israel's violation of the Lebanese border, saying IDF troops crossed the internationally-recognized border line prior to the exchange of fire between the two countries' forces. The incident was the first of its kind since the aftermath of last summer's war between Hezbollah and Israel.

This is a regrettable incident indeed. Clashes of this kind should be avoided, to prevent a possible flare-up on the Northern border, which will be handy to Hezbollah and its Iranian sponsor. And not handy at all to Israel and Lebanon. Which makes the following even more difficult to understand:

Following the discussion on the matter, the UN Security Council called for the renewal of coordination meetings between the IDF, the Lebanese Army and UNIFIL that had been customary immediately following the Israel-Hezbollah war this summer. Lebanon was not interested in the renewal of such meetings.

Not interested... Anyway, the most interesting thing in the whole story is that no Israeli soldier crossed the border.

UNIFIL patrolled the area around Israel's and Lebanon's shared border, photographed the site, and concluded that IDF troops operated entirely within Israeli territory.

So clearly our easily excitable northern neighbor made a mistake. Again. To prevent this kind of mistake from happening in the future, we have prepared a handy guide for Mr. Siniora. Knowing his sensitive nature and his custom of getting depressed and crying at any opportunity, we consider this to be of great use to him:

The blue line on the diagram above is that famous internationally recognised border that you, Mr. Siniora and he, Mr. Olmert, or any of your and his respective countrymen, are not allowed to cross. The red line is that fence that was erected to interfere with some of your more southward mobile countrymen in their incessant drive south.

Now, and here comes the important part: the area between the red and blue lines is for IDF to use for any damn reason whatsoever, and you would do much better explaining this fact to your countrymen. Lest they get hurt shooting off their big guns. And make you cry again like a baby before your friends, deeply embarrassing yourself.

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