Where to draw the line

Last month’s deadly border clash between Lebanese and Israeli troops raises a question about the curious manner in which the Blue Line — the term given to the United Nations boundary that follows the original 1923 border between Lebanon and Palestine — was delineated a decade ago.  Other than the original 1923 border agreement, subsequently reconfirmed as the 1949 Armistice Line, the main source of data to define the line was the last border survey carried out by the Israel-Lebanon Mixed Armistice Commission (ILMAC) in 1949-1950. The appendices contained a list of coordinates, sketches and large-scale maps, which were used by the UN to help mark out the boundary after the Israeli withdrawal from South Lebanon in 2000. The process hit controversy when the UN agreed to a series of compromises that deviated the Blue Line away from the path of the original border to satisfy Israeli security interests. One