Outgoing Israeli PM Ehud Olmert's wide-ranging interview with the New York Times is both incredibly important and deeply bittersweet. It is good to see him recognize that the hardline approach he spent decades advocating is bankrupt. It is astonishing to hear him castigate Israel's defense establishment, saying, "With them, it is all about tanks and land and controlling territories and controlled territories and this hilltop and that hilltop. All these things are worthless." But It is a pity to see him do all this after he has been ejected from office and no longer holds serious power. But that, of course, is not an accident. The parliamentary nature of Israel's political system gives incredible power to small, radical political parties. The Israeli bureaucracy is shot through with settlers and hardline military types. Olmert is freed to speak precisely because he no longer wields real power, and so is not constrained by the need to sustain a majority coalition or work within a bureaucracy hostile to these opinions.. His successor, sadly, will not have such autonomy. In other news, L'shana tova!