Happy Father’s Day, Lionel Richie:

It’s not easy raising a celebutante. Take it from Lionel Richie.

The singer was accepting the “Icon” honor at Sunday night’s taping of the TV Land Awards, when he got applause and a laugh at daughter Nicole’s expense.

“Forget about surviving 40 years in the music business,” Lionel Richie told the audience. “Just surviving 27 years of Nicole Richie has been a struggle-and-a-half, I want to tell you. I stand here as a survivor, I want you to know, for all the parents out there.”

Gee. Maybe he should have been more of a parent and less of a celebrity himself. Other celebs seem to manage to raise normal kids.

If he wasn’t joking, he’s a jackass.

A German magazine says that Imad Mugniyah was killed in revenge for exposing a would-be coup:

An attempt to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government was thwarted without the international community’s ever having noticed, German newspaper Die Welt reported Saturday, citing international German intelligence sources.

The report stated that Assaf Shawkat, Syrian military intelligence chief and Assad’s brother-in-law, planned to sieze control of the government while the president was hosting a meeting of the Arab League in Damascus in February. Shawkat was detained along with a hundred other Syrian intelligence officers.

According to Die Welt, Assad was informed of the turnover attempt by Hizbullah leader Imad Mugniyah, who was assassinated in Damascus days later. The intelligence sources postulated that the targeted killing of Mugniyah had been planned by Shawkat’s associates, as retaliation for the disclosure of the planned rebellion.

You know, I actually don’t care who killed him, or why he’s dead. I’m just glad he’s dead. But this is another report that blames Syrian security services for the act. Not, of course, that this will stop the Arabs from blaming Israel for it. In their worldview, I’m sure they blame the coup attempt on Israel.

The democratically-elected government of the Palestinians fired 18 mortars and four kassam rockets at Israel today, in an attempt to prove that war means peace. That’s right, they’ve threatened that if Israel doesn’t make peace, Hamas will make war on them. (As opposed to making war on them whether or not Israel agrees to the truce, but that’s beside the point because the Arabs always live in extra-special Arab Bizarro World, where “truce” means “war” and “war” means “war.” And, in fact, breathing means war, living means war, looking sideways at a terrorist means war, well, you get the idea.)

Eighteen mortar shells were fired from Gaza toward the Nahal Oz area noon Tuesday, as the “Kitchen Cabinet” - consisting of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni - was expected to reach a decision on whether or not to launch a military operation against Palestinian terror groups in the coastal enclave.

Hamas claimed responsibility for the mortar fire, and shortly after the attacks Palestinian sources reported that three Hamas operatives were killed and a number of others were wounded in an Israel Air Force strike in the Gaza City neighborhood of Sajaiya.

[...] The mortars, which were fired in two separate salvos, landed in open areas near Nahal Oz, causing no injuries or damage.

Earlier Tuesday, at around 11:15 am, two Qassam rockets fired from the northern Strip landed in open areas in the Negev. Two more rockets fired toward the southern region at 7:30 am landed within Sdot Negev Regional Council limits and south of Ashkelon. No injuries or damage were reported in either attack.

In addition to the rocket fire, Tuesday morning saw four mortars land near the security fence separating Israel from Gaza.

So that makes 22 mortars and four kassams. And Israel’s cabinet is trying to decide whether or not to go into Gaza? I’m sorry, you call yourselves Israel’s leaders?

Just do it. Because Israel is losing its deterrence.

Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) all believe that the political state of mind in Israel will not allow such an operation to materialize.

“The letter relayed from Gilad Shalit put an end to any such notion,” a senior militant source told Ynet. “The Israelis have realized that any large operation would carry severe consequences, both because we have Shalit and because (IDF) training has proven that it would suffer a great deal of casualties in the first hours to any operation. All they (Israel) can do now is just keep threatening.”

The Israeli reports of an imminent attack, added the source, are meant to serve the Israeli public opinion and nothing more.

You can’t blame them. They have fired thousands of rockets into Israel with impunity over the past several years. The consequences are, to them, minimal.

The course of action the Palestinian groups believe Israel will take will be to resume the targeted assassinations of senior operatives: “It would provide the necessary blood sacrifice needed to quench the Israelis’ thirst, and would stop the IDF from getting caught in Gaza’s quicksand.”

It should be a two-pronged attack: The assassination of Hamas leadership, and the ground invasion that takes out the terrorist cells. But I don’t think they’re going to do it. Barak is pushing for a “medium” sized operation (whatever the hell that means). Olmert is going to hang onto power no matter what, even though 61% of Israelis think he should step down
.

It’s time for a new government, Israel. Word is Labor will join Likud in dissolving the Knesset next week. Here’s hoping.

There’s no telling when the letter was written, at least, not according to anything in the news, but Gilad Shalit’s parents did receive another letter from him.

The parents of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, who was taken prisoner by Hamas over 20 months ago, have received another letter from their son, Monday.

[...] Shalit’s father, Noam, confirmed that a letter was in fact relayed through the Born To Freedom Foundation: “The family had received a letter today via the secretary-general of the Carter Center.

“There are many signs indicating that the letter is authentic. It conveys a message from Gilad – he is pleading, begging us to do everything we can to see that he is released form captivity.”

The article goes on to say that some are interpreting this as a sign Hamas believes the IDF means business when it talks about coming into Gaza in force.

A senior source in Jerusalem said Monday the new letter should be taken as a messaged form Hamas, which seems to be concerned that its refusal to release Shalit as part of the tahadiya – the temporary calm Egypt is trying to broker between Israel and Hamas; and the ongoing rocket fire on the western Negev will prompt a so-far pending Israeli decision to launch a wide-scale operation in the Gaza Strip.

The timing, said Jerusalem, is far from coincidental: “The letter has surfaced just before the security cabinet’s discussion on any future Gaza operation. The letter surfaced just as Olmert, (Defense Minister Ehud) Barak and (Foreign Minister Tzipi) Livni have reiterated Israel’s prerequisite demand that Gilad be released.”

Hamas sources refused to confirm the reports of the new letter, but told Ynet that should that be true, the timing was closely linked to the ceasefire talks and to the Palestinian assessments that any Israeli attempt exacerbate the situation in the Strip may harm a future Shalit deal.

Relaying a letter, said the source, was nothing more than a humanitarian gesture, and not indicative of any progress made in Shalit’s case.

Okay, I have a suggestion. Go ahead with the “calm” after all, but only if Shalit is released. Don’t release prisoners with blood on their hands for him. And then, after you have Shalit back, wait until the first kassam heads into southern Israel, or the first terrorist plants another bomb, or does what terrorists do. Declare the truce violated, and head into Gaza in force to take out Hamas. It’s win-win if you ask me.

That’s assuming Shalit is still alive. We have no real proof yet.