Israeli hostages are safe.Lebanon's foreign minister knows all about it.

In today's Khaleej Times from the UAE, there's an article quoting no less than Lebanese Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh talking about the condition of the two Israeli soldiers held hostage by Hezbollah.

“The Israeli soldiers are in good health and in a safe place,” Sallkouh told reporters, and called for a third party or friendly country to engage in mediation.

“Germany has played an important and prominent role between Lebanon and Israel in the past, and it can play the same role now,” Sallkouh said after meeting Peter Witteg, chief of international affairs at the German Foreign Affairs Ministry.

(FF notes: Germany was the intermediary when the Israelis swapped 400 live terrorists for three dead bodies and a captured civilain in 2004. Considering that a number of those terrorists are probably still fighting against Israel again, the Israelis probably figured out that it was a dumb deal to make.)

Sallkouh said his talks with Witteg had not broached the issue of the Israeli soldiers, saying, “Let them cease fire and then there will be a prisoner exchange. ..,” he added.

Tell me again how this was all Hezbollah's idea and the Lebanese government had nothing to do with it.

What's more, Sallkouh obviously knows where the soldiers are being held.

That makes him and the Lebanese government complicit, no matter how you try and spin it.

At a time when this same government is crying the blues to the `international community about damage to Lebanon's infrastructure and the humanitarian disaster supposedly caused by Israel, that's a pertinent fact to remember.

And if the Lebanese government is so concerned about humanitarian principles, maybe they could provide an example by allowing the International Red Cross access to the prisoners...like wicked ol' Israel does with the terrorists it's holding.

Somehow, I kind of doubt that's going to happen.

One more time; This was an act of war by one sovereign state against another. The Lebanese government or at least substantial elements within it were on board from the beginning.

Buy the ticket,take the ride, I always say.