Outgoing Israeli PM Ehud Olmert got a lot of pre-Jewish New Year attention for a lengthy farewell interview he gave to Yedioth Ahronoth in which he presented his most candid and detailed views on making peace with Israel's neighbors.

Olmert made some sweeping statements about war and peace. By the end of the interview, it seemed as if Olmert had been transformed into a zealous "land-for-peace" convert in his waning days in office.

Olmert's conversion prompted Haaretz journalist Aluf Benn to scoff that the PM's actions never matched his words - and that his statements are "too little, too late."

Olmert is on his way out of office, is deeply unpopular, and has little political cachet left.

What might have happened if Olmert had made such declarations a year ago, before he was hobbled by the political corruption investigation that could still send him to prison?

Rolling Stone magazine once pioneered an interview style in which its writers melded the subject's words into one, eloquent, stream-of-consciousness  chat.

Below, in homage to that Rolling Stone style, is a cut-and-paste job of Olmert's Yedioth interview, presented as the speech to the nation that Olmert might have given a year ago:

Citizens of Israel: "On the eve of Rosh Hashanah, I wanted to talk with you about what is bothering me and what excites me about this country. I don’t want to whip the State of Israel on the back. There is nothing I love more, there is nothing I am prouder of, than the State of Israel.

There are people who love to lash out at others, because apparently they do not have another way to reach any sort of personal satisfaction, a sense of getting something done. They are not important. They are only important because we devote time to them, not because they are really important.

What is important to me at the moment is where the people of Israel are going. I am concerned about the dangers and encouraged by the opportunities. What occupies me is what awaits my children and my grandchildren. In a few years, my grandchildren will ask what their grandfather did, what country we have left them.

In the end we have an opportunity that is limited in time—a time so short as to cause terrible distress—in which we may be able to take a historical step in our relations with the Palestinians and a historical step in our relations with the Syrians.

In both cases, the decision we have to make is a decision that we have been refusing for 40 years to look at open-eyed.

We have to reach an agreement with the Palestinians, the meaning of which is that in practice we will withdraw from almost all the territories, if not all the territories.

We will leave a percentage of these territories in our hands, but will have to give the Palestinians a similar percentage, because without that there will be no peace -- including in Jerusalem, with special solutions that I can envision on the topic of the Temple Mount and the sacred and historical sites.

Whoever talks seriously about wanting security in Jerusalem and not wanting tractors and bulldozers to crush the legs of his best friends, as happened to a close friend of mine, who lost a leg because he was run over by a terrorist on a bulldozer, has to give up parts of Jerusalem.

Whoever wants to hold on to all of the city’s territory will have to bring 270,000 Arabs inside the fences of sovereign Israel.

It won’t work.

A decision has to be made.

This decision is difficult, terrible, a decision that contradicts our natural instincts, our innermost desires, our collective memories, the prayers of the Jewish people for 2,000 years.

I am the first who wanted to enforce Israeli sovereignty on the entire city. I admit it. I am not trying to justify retroactively what I did for 35 years. For a large portion of these years, I was unwilling to look at reality in all its depth.

Why the fear? Whom are we afraid of?

We know full well that my governmental term is short, but the governmental term of others is also short. But we believe that there is a very great danger that there will be a bloody clash, which will thwart any possibility of continuing negotiations and perhaps will force us to be involved in the confrontation, with bloodshed, with everything that could happen as a result.

Arik Sharon spoke about painful prices, and refused to elaborate them. I say, there is no choice but to elaborate: In the end, we will have to withdraw from the lion’s share of the territories, and for the territories we leave in our hands, we will have to give compensation in the form of territories within the State of Israel at a ratio that is more or less 1:1.

What I am saying to you now has not been said by any Israeli leader before me. The time has come to say these things. The time has come to put them on the table.

The goal is to try to reach for the first time the delineation of an exact border line between us and the Palestinians, where the whole world—the United States, the UN, Europe—will say, these are the borders of the State of Israel, we recognize them, we anchor them in formal resolutions of international institutions. These are Israel’s borders, and these are the recognized borders of the Palestinian state.

Should I tell you that reaching peace is easy? I agree with you that it is difficult. Should I say that there are complexities? Without a doubt. That there are sensitivities? Undoubtedly. Should I tell you that there are uncertainties? There are uncertainties. Should I say that there are things that could go wrong? There is no doubt that things could go wrong.

On the Syrian issue too, what we need first and foremost is a decision.

I want to see whether there is one serious person in the State of Israel who believes that peace can be made with the Syrians without ultimately giving up the Golan Heights.

Everyone knows, and I don’t have to elaborate, that when we had to take actions to ensure our security vis-à-vis the Syrians, we knew how to do so boldly, with imagination and force, and while taking risks. Still, we have to look two moves ahead.

Once, the thought that a division of Syrian tanks was standing on the Golan Heights and could move into the State of Israel, justifiably frightened us. Today we live in a different reality. We have the tools to stop a ground offensive without taking control of a single meter in Syria, and we have other tools with which we can win such a campaign if it develops in the places from which it develops, at the distances from which it will arrive.

We have proven this. The Syrians also know this.

True, an agreement with Syria bears a risk. Whoever wants to operate with zero risks, should move to Switzerland or Iceland. Whoever wants to make peace in the Middle East should understand that he also has to take risks. I am not proposing to take insane risks: I am proposing to take risks versus which there are chances of dramatic changes.

I am not proposing to make peace with Syria while only giving up the Golan Heights.

The Syrians know full well what they will have to give up in order to receive the Golan Heights. They will have to give up their relationship with Iran as it now exists; they will have to give up their relationship with Hezbollah; they will have to give up the continued backing they are giving to the Hamas terrorism, the al-Qaeda terrorism and the jihad in Iraq.

They know: These things have been made clear to them.

Let us assume that in the next year or two a regional war breaks out and we reach a military confrontation with Syria. I have no doubt that we will roundly defeat them; we are stronger than them.

I am telling you, Israel is the strongest country in the Middle East. We can face any of our adversaries, and we can face all the adversaries together and win. I only ask myself, what will happen when we beat them? First of all, we will pay prices, and they will be painful.

After we pay what we will pay, what will we tell them? Let’s talk. And what will the Syrians say to us? Let’s talk about the Golan Heights.

So I ask, why get into a war with the Syrians, [with] losses, destructions, damages, to reach what can be reached without paying such heavy prices.

When there is no peace, the chances of war are always greater.

And I say, we are strong enough as we are.

The strength we have today is great, and it is sufficient to face any threat. Now we have to see how we use this infrastructure of force in order to build peace and not to win a war.

The question is how we dismantle the complex system of what is known as the axis of evil, how we do this by smart, responsible diplomatic processes, which entail taking a risk.

I want to learn from my own mistakes. I did not see it then, I am not trying to justify myself. Exactly 30 years ago, when Menachem Begin came back from Camp David, I spoke against and I voted against. I admit it, I am not hiding it, I am not obfuscating on the matter.

When I look back, at the periods of the prime ministers who preceded me, Arik Sharon, Bibi Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, and the late Rabin, I say, each of them made a step that led us in the right direction, but at some point in time, at some juncture where a decision was required, the decision was not made.

I want to lead the State of Israel towards this juncture, towards a decision. Without hesitation, with full force and without fears. I am a person without fears. Not because I cannot appreciate dangers, but because I think that I know how to deal with dangers, knowing the might that the State of Israel has.

There are no ideal decisions. There is no situation where it can be said that you should do one, two, three and all the pieces will fall into place in some puzzle that you have assembled in your head.

I think that the attempt to presume to say today, when I am not yet finished, how I will be remembered in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, there is something presumptuous and arrogant about that.

I can say one thing, that I hope that in the final analysis, people will know that I wanted to improve the State of Israel and to do everything so that it be a better country, a stronger country, a happier country. That is truly the thing that preoccupied me day and night. Nothing else.

Our friends over at Israelity Bites have come across this very topical, JibJabesque, video featuring McCain, Obama, Palin and Biden atoning for their political sins on the eve of the Jewish New Year...

The intrepid Indiana Jones was famous for his Achilles heel: An irrepressible fear of snakes.

Chances are, most people are like Indiana Jones.

But Time Magazine's Tim McGirk has discovered an unlikely Israeli spa where snakes are your personal masseuse: A spa that slithers.

What could be more relaxing than having a dozen snakes crawling on your back, around your legs, over your nose...

What?

At "Ada Barak's Carnivorous Plant Farm" (seriously), you can pay $80 to have a collection of big and small snakes slither over your naked body.

Though admittedly dubious, McGirk (a war zone veteran) submitted himself to the treatment and came away "relaxed and curiously light-headed."

Maybe it was the snake nibbling on his eyelashes?

I guess it is only a matter of time before someone decides to open a spider spa...

For those of you that don't already have the heebie-jeebies, Tim has a video of the slithering spa and his unusual treatment.

(Getty photo: Uriel Sinai)

We might not get to see Obama and McCain debate tonight as planned, but we can see a bit more of the elusive GOP VP, Sarah Palin, who is calling Ahmadinejad "evil." (If you want to be precise, she denounced "the evil that he speaks.")

In the second part of her interview with Palin on CBS, Katie Couric delves into the VP's previous statement that the US should never "second guess" Israel when it comes to its national security, whether the US should talk to Syria, and what lessons she had learned from watching the Bush administration's push for democracy in the Middle East, including the stinging election of Hamas in 2006.

It's not clear how well Palin understood the question or the issue, because she very quickly changed the topic to Ahmadinejad, "the evil that he speaks," and what a wake up call he should be for Americans who might be lulled back into a pre-9/11 reverie.

This question is not in the transcript on the CBS News page, so here's what Palin was asked, and what she said.

Couric: What happens if the goal of democracy, Gov. Palin, doesn’t produce the desired outcome? For example, in Gaza, the U.S. pushed hard for elections – and Hamas won.”

Palin: Yeah, well, especially in that region though, we have got to protect those, and support those, who do seek democracy and do seek protections for the people who live there.  And we’re seeing today, in the last couple of days here in New York, a speaker, a president of Iran, Ahmadinejad, who would come over on our soil and express such disdain for one of our closest allies and friends, Israel, and we’re hearing the evil that he speaks. And if hearing him doesn’t allow Americans to commit more solidly to protect the friends and allies we need, especially there in the Middle East, then nothing will. If Americans are not waking up to what it is that he represents, then nothing is going to wake us up and we will be lulled into some false sense of security that perhaps Americans were part of before 9/11."

In an echo of Bush's plain-talking "Bring' em on" lines, Palin boils the Middle East down into black-and-white terms.

"It is obvious to me who the good guys are in this one and who the bad guys are," says Palin. "The bad guys are the ones who say Israel is a stinking corpse and should be wiped off the face of the earth. That's not a good guy who is saying that. Now, one who would seek to protect the good guys in this, the leaders of Israel and her friends, her allies, including the United States, in my world, those are the good guys."

Here is the full video:

The year was 1965. The Beatles had been officially honored by Queen Elizabeth (who, remarkably, is still queen).  "Ticket To Ride" was a number one hit. The Fab Four set out for their second US tour.

And Israel banned Ringo, George, Paul and John from performing for fear of the corrupting influence the Fab Four might have on the young 'uns.

Beatle fans in Israel were devastated.

These days, no one who follows Middle East politics will be surprised to hear, there is a fresh dispute over exactly why Israel barred The Beatles from performing.

The Conventional Wisdom is that it was Evil Israeli Bureaucrats who were too prudish and conservative to allow the young nation's youth to hear such rubbish.

"There is no musical or artistic experience here but a sensual display that arouses feelings of aggression replete with sexual stimuli," the head of Israel's education ministry reportedly said at the time.

But a new Alternative Theory is gaining credence: The concert was canceled because of a feud between two rival concert promoters.

(That theory is being spun, no surprise here, but the son of the Evil Israeli Bureaucrat most-closely associated with The Beatles Ban...)

It doesn't matter. Whoever or whatever the reason, The Beatles were banned.

Last night, that wrong was rectified, in a small way, when Paul McCartney performed for the first time in Israel.

Some 40,000 fans turned out to see Paul, who traveled to Bethlehem during his trip and said he was bringing a message of peace to the Middle East.

Israel doesn't get many major musical acts, so McCartney's gig was treated with the kind of coverage normally reserved for the US president or the Pope.

Papers provided details on what Sir Paul would be eating (humus from East Jerusalem, for one), what robe he would be given at his Tel Aviv hotel, and the special cake with his albums glazed on it waiting for him in his room.

As Israeli historian Tom Segev notes in Tim McGirk's piece on the concert in Time Magazine: The hype surrounding the concert was a kind of displaced yearning for what almost happened in the euphoric '60s, but didn't.

"It's nostalgia for something that never existed in Israel at the time," Segev said. 

"Our generation grew up on the Beatles culture, but we didn't feel a part of it," Segev said. "We missed out on the '68 revolution. All of our energies were consumed by the Six Day War and the army's occupation of the West Bank."

Not quite the Summer of Love...

(AP photo: Bernat Armangue)

Israeli military censors are apparently none-too-happy with what they are seeing on television in "Big Brother: Israel."

The show (making its Israeli debut) is only three weeks old, but Israeli censors have already warned the producers that the participants need to stop talking about their military service, lest they reveal military secrets.

Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth reports that censors are basically telling the folks on "Big Brother" to shut up.

They don't even want them talking about where the served, let alone what they did.

Here's their story:

Big Brother vs. "Big Brother"

The Army censor is angry: Participants in the "Big Brother" program are revealing secrets from their military service on the live broadcast.

Members of the Army Censor's office have approached Keshet Broadcasting (the company producing Big Brother) asking them to order participants in the program "Big Brother" to avoid talking about army or security matters.

In the “Big Brother” program, participants are locked in a house for 99 days away from the rest of the world without radio, television, the Internet, or newspapers.

During this period the participants are surrounded by camera and microphones which record their every movement and discussion. Everything that goes on in the house is broadcast 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Every week one participant is thrown out of the house.

Naturally, the microphones record many conversations between the residents. These conversations have to do with their private lives: Partners, parents, family, hobbies, and, of course, army service.

The request of Army censors to Keshet came after a number of complaints by civilians who claimed that military secrets might be accidentally revealed by everyday conversations between the residents.

One of the residents who spoke frequently spoke like this is Eran Zilberman, who was a combat soldier in the IDF. But others also spoke about their memories of army service, which might reveal things that should not be revealed.

The censorship office has asked Keshet to brief each of the participants and make clear that army and security matters are not to be discussed, including those that seem to have no meaning, such as the names of army bases where they served.

Keshet confirmed that they had been approached by the military censor's office and that they are taking it seriously.

A source from among the producers said that soon the participants would be instructed in accordance with the censor's request.

(Translation courtesy of McClatchy special correspondent Cliff Churgin.)

Pippi Longstocking, her red braids poking straight out from her head, tries to pull down Israel's separation wall on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

A group of ceremonial British guards in their towering, signature, black Bearskin hats and red jackets march in unison through empty London streets as the sound of their uniform steps echoes off the buildings.

A empty coffin made from IKEA wood rests near the front door with vases of flowers on both sides.

The pieces are all part of "Can Art Do More?" a worthwhile new art exhibition featuring 66 artists from 25 countries that opened Tuesday night in Jerusalem.

"Can Art Do More?" brings together Israeli, Algerian, French, American, Indian and other artists wrestling with the role of art in the world.

The curators use a Jean-Luc Goddard quote as the launching point for the exhibition:

"What does art want? Everything.

What can art do? Nothing.

What does art do? Something.”

The exhibition is being held in the unfinished ground floor of a new mall in Jerusalem's gritty Talpiot shopping district. The curators chose the site in an attempt to choose a building with "no history." (In actuality, every place in Jerusalem has a disputed past, even if there is a new building on the land...)

The exhibition, which runs through Oct. 23rd, offers a diverse collection of pieces that tackle everything from politics and war to religion and sexuality.

In a piece tackling conformity and individuality, Belgian-born artist Francis Alys presents an oddly- entrancing, 25-minute video, "Guards," that follows small groups of British ceremonial guards as they march in formation through empty London streets until they converge and, ultimately, disperse.

Israeli artist Nira Pereg takes a look at uneasy divisions raised between the sacred and the mundane in a compelling short video, "Sabbath 2008." With no voice-over or narration, the piece silently documents ultra-Orthodox Israelis preparing to close off their neighborhoods on Friday at sundown for the start of the Jewish Sabbath.

In a more pointedly political piece, Israeli-born artist Rona Yefman follows a red-haired Danish performance artist dressed as Pippi Longstocking as she unsuccessfully tries to pull down Israel's towering separation wall in Abu Dis.

There are the artists who brought a camel to a busy gas station in Tehran and shot video of the encounter.

There is a suspended black umbrella with a microphone attached to the handle. Speak into the mic and the video image of the parrot on the adjacent wall might mimic your words.

And there's the weird contraption that sends single bubbles floating down to a grill where they erupt in brief, bright balls of fire.

"This year’s Art Focus is taking place at a moment of conflict, in a situation of total impasse," said curators Bernard Blistene and Ami Barak. "Maybe we did not know how to convince them better? Or have we failed to grasp the abysmal depths of violence and hatred that separate the two sides? The truth is probably, as Hegel put it, that 'art is a sweet narcotic unable to cure the misfortunes of this world.'”

If you thought those wacky European and American graffiti artists who came here in December to transform Israel's separation wall into a massive canvas for "Santa's Ghetto" were a bunch of loons, well you might want to consider that their work transformed those ugly gray slabs into some pretty sought-after concrete.

It turns out, for those who didn't know before, that artwork by Banksy, the mysterious, anonymous, British graffiti artist who spearheads "Santa's Ghetto," is worth a pretty substantial chunk of change.

Keith Spera over at The Times-Picayune in New Orleans reports that Banksy recently turned up in Katrinaville Ground Zero to commemorate the third anniversary of the devastating hurricane.

In a series of pieces you can see on his Web site, Banksy painted a boy riding a life preserver rope swing. He painted National Guard troops looting stereo equipment from a store. He painted a New Orleans brass band with some of them wearing gas masks.

"I looked out the window of my taxi on my drive into New Orleans and remarked: 'There is still so much devastation - I can't believe they haven't cleaned this mess up," Banksy writes on his Web site. "To which the driver stared at me and said: 'This part of the city wasn't affected by the hurricane - it's always looked like this."

Anyway, as Spera points out, Banky's artwork is now sometimes worth more, sometimes much more, than the thing it is painted on.

At a recent "urban art" sale, one of Banksy's pieces - of chimpanzees with sandwich boards taunting humans - sold for $400,000, as in: Creeping up towards half-a-million dollars.

At the same event, a Banksy screen print of Kate Moss sold for $191,000.

"The art-versus-vandalism argument aside," Spera writes, "Banksy's visit was the equivalent of a leprechaun dispensing pots of gold."

Instead of protecting the artwork, though, folks in New Orleans have already obliterated many of Banksy's pieces.

That prompted Spera to make an impassioned plea:

"If clandestine British graffiti artist Banksy ever returns to New Orleans, I'm going to wrap my house in canvas, set his favorite snack on the porch and hope that, like Santa Claus, he shows up in the middle of the night bearing gifts," Spera wrote. "Any little doodle will do."

As in New Orleans, Banksy left his mark on Bethlehem and the West Bank. As in New Orleans, some of the signature pieces - the rat with the slingshot and the soldier checking the ID of the donkey - were painted over.

(There were actually some questions of cultural sensitivity raised about Banksy's artwork, but that's a whole 'nother issue...)

Other Banksy works around Bethlehem, like the girl in the pink dress questioning the soldier, remain.

And other famous artists have pieces on the wall, though some of the artwork is in better shape than others.

So, now that "urban art" is a lucrative business, and now that the wall is becoming a destination spot for said urban artists, considering the fact that there's little solid left to invest in in the United States, maybe it's time to invest in a few gray slabs of concrete...

As expected, Israeli President Shimon Peres has tapped Tzipi Livni to take on the daunting task of trying to form a new coalition government and, thus, head off unpredictable national elections that could put the country back in the hands of a more conservative government.

Over the next 42 days, Livni will have a tough time wooing rivals on the left and on the right who want to extract as may concessions as they can before they agree to join any Livni-led coalition.

But the foreign minister who is a few steps away from becoming the second woman to ever lead Israel is getting some support from an unlikely place: Syria.

In an editorial titled, "Tzipi - Israel's new bird" (a reference to the fact that her full name - Tzipora - means "bird" in Hebrew), Syria's state Tishrin newspaper praised Livni as a "Mossad beauty," according to Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

(Livni spent two years in her early career working for the Mossad in Paris. While the nature of her work during her short duration with the Israeli spy agency is unknown, The Times of London wrote a questionable story in July that suggested that Livni was a young "terrorist hunter." The story, which probably helped boost her thin security credentials and credibility among some Israelis, received a lot of attention, especially in the Arab world...)

"International commentators describe Livni as a dove among hawks," the editorial states. "If this 'Mossad dove' wishes to repent for her crimes and the crimes of her family, and if she truly wishes to secure peace, she will get peace. If she doesn't want that, the region will remain in a state that is neither peace nor war, while facing a tense and unstable atmosphere."

Ok, it might not be a genuine love letter, but it does show a level of intrigue in the Arab world in Livni's rise to power.

Meanwhile, The Jerusalem Post reports that Israel's ultra-Orthodox newspapers won't even publish Livni's photograph so as not to violate cultural sensitivities.

"For us, the newspaper is an educational device that not only informs but also teaches people how to behave," an anonymous editor at the Haredi newspaper Hamodia told The Jerusalem Post. "If it detracts from yiddishkeit [Jewishness], it won't be in our paper."

The editor did concede that papers published Golda Meir's photos when she was Israel's prime minister.

But.

"Golda was an institution," the editor said. "She was a respected figure with decades of political experience before she became prime minister. But in recent years there has been depreciation in the level of politicians."

But, don't take it personally Tzipi!

Welcome to the highest echelon of Israeli politics! You've got 42 days before the carriage turns into a pumpkin...

How cool is Tel Aviv?

Earlier this summer, The New York Times travel section triumphantly declared Tel Aviv "the capital of Mediterranean cool."

That overstated story help set off a rush of travel reporters who practically stumbled over each other to similarly declare Tel Aviv hip, happening and Now.

But now comes the moment that Tel Aviv has truly Arrived: In exclusive video you can see here on Checkpoint Jerusalem, Paris Hilton declares Israel's coastal capital to be "hot."

In a new promotional ad campaign for Germany's Rich Prosecco sparkling wine, Paris reclines on a divan in a tasteful gray dress (so as not to offend the ultra-Orthodox would be my guess) and seals Tel Aviv's status as, not just hot, but Paris Hot.

"I would love to come party with you and Rich," Paris says in the promotional video. "Because I heard the night life in Tel Aviv is so hot."

(As a public service, Checkpoint Jerusalem is providing the video, courtesy of Rich Prosecco, which can't be found (yet) on YouTube, or anywhere else I'm aware of...)

Now, some might say that, if Tel Aviv is Paris Hot, maybe its time has passed.

This new "Tel Aviv is Trendy" trend prompted Time Out Israel to ask, in the current issue: "Is Tel Aviv really that cool?"

Overall, the "hip" magazine gave Tel Aviv a score of 7.1.

Time Out Tel Aviv rated Tel Aviv nightlife a 9, culture an 8, and inhabitants a 9. But it rated Tel Aviv food a 5, cost of living a 4 and urban landscape a 6.

So Paris thinks Tel Aviv is hot. But what do Israelis think of Paris?

Apparently some at the Rich Prosecco launch party weren't too impressed with Paris, even though she busted out with some Hebrew words in the video.

"For a dumb blond like Paris Hilton, it's amazing she can distribute a drink like this," one guy named Amit told Israel's main entertainment station.

Party-goers had better things to say about the drink itself, which is basically like champagne in a Red Bull can.

“To open a can and begin to drink in the forest, on the beach, at home, to go out for a walk with it, I love it," said Rich Prosecco fan Doreen. "I love this concept. It's also really good."

Rich Prosecco is hoping to capitalize on Paris Hilton's celebrity by bringing her to Tel Aviv some time soon to promote their sparkling wine in person.

Now that would be Paris hot.