"We will wage an all-out war on the terrorists, those who collaborated with them and those who send them," vowed Sharon in his special address to the Knesset, Israel's parliament.

But Sharon's options are limited. Despite his rage at the Palestinian Authority, an "all-out war," the solution of choice for extreme right-wingers (like the late Zeevi) who criticize Sharon for being too soft on the Palestinians, is out of the question when the West is leaning on Israel to cool down the Middle East conflict and allow the campaign against bin Laden in Afghanistan to run its course without inflaming Muslims around the world. At the same time Arafat, a man many Israelis consider the head of a terrorist statelet, has suddenly become the West's darling because he commands a measure of respect in the Arab street -- and because he is not bin Laden. A secular leader who has shown willingness in the past to compromise and has recognized Israel's right to exist, Arafat represents the only viable alternative, however flawed, to Islamic extremist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. By saying that bin Laden does not speak for the Palestinian people, Arafat has won fresh promises from the West to help right a historical wrong by granting Palestinians a full-fledged state.

Recognizing this sea change in international relations, Sharon has gone out of his way in recent days to look reasonable in Western eyes. On several occasions he publicly expressed openness to some kind of a Palestinian state on the condition that it be demilitarized and that Israel control its borders. Sharon's vision for a Palestinian state, which is much more modest in territory and autonomy than his predecessor Ehud Barak was prepared to offer, was still too much for right-wing Israelis to swallow -- but U.S. pressure forced them to address the issue. The murder of Zeevi, who has been suddenly raised to the stature of a national hero, is certain to poison the political atmosphere and postpone substantive debates.

Zeevi and Minister of Infrastructure Avigdor Lieberman, his partner in a small right-wing faction representing hard-line settlers, had announced two days ago they would formally resign from Ariel Sharon's government on Wednesday, depriving Sharon of the support of seven members of the Knesset and a great deal of political legitimacy on the right. Although Lieberman suspended his resignation after Zeevi's death, the political storm the duo started is likely to keep gathering strength in the coming days.

Israeli commentators pointed out that when Zeevi walked out of the right-wing government headed by Yitzhak Shamir in 1992, he inadvertently brought about the election of Rabin, the peace-maker and signatory of the Oslo accords. This time around, a defection by the extreme right could spell the beginning of the end of Sharon's broad-based unity government and bring about the reelection of former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, a savvy younger politician who has carved out a position as an ultra-hawk, to the right of the right-wing Sharon.

Zeevi, known mostly for his virulently anti-Arab views, including the belief that all Arabs be "transferred" from Israel, the West Bank and Gaza to neighboring Arab states, was an almost mythic figure and a fixture on Israel's political scene. A 75-year-old retired army general who was part of Israel's "Mayflower generation," he fought -- like Sharon -- for Israel's independence in 1948 and continued to act for the rest of his life as if Israel was actively at war. "He was one of the great warriors. He loved this country. He fought for this county. He knew all the country's paths and he never changed his opinions from the first day," said Defense Minister Fuad Ben-Eliezer, walking through the Knesset corridors before an official mourning session was held Wednesday.

A state funeral is planned Thursday afternoon. Zeevi's body will first lie in state on the plaza of the Knesset, and will then be buried on Mount Herzl, in a cemetery reserved for Israel's military heroes.

On the day of his death, even Zeevi's political opponents had good words to say about the sixth-generation Jerusalemite, saluting in him a good rival, a polite man and voracious reader with an exceptionally good command of Hebrew.

But headlines in Wednesday's paper -- printed before Zeevi's murder -- pointed to his more substantial legacy as a professional troublemaker and, in some people's view, a disgrace to Israeli politics.

Zeevi's influence, measured in terms of Knesset seats or political wheeling and dealing, was not as important as the special place he held in the hearts of Israeli extremists. Zeevi's name was synonymous with the idea of "voluntary transfer," a euphemism (and oxymoron) for the expulsion of Arabs from Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. Zeevi believed that Arabs living between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River -- i.e. all of Israel, which he regarded as biblically given to the Jews -- should not be expelled by force, but rather urged to follow their best interests and leave. The idea -- like a kinder, gentler repetition of the 1948 refugee crisis, when during and after the first Arab-Israeli War about 700,000 Arabs fled or were driven from their homes -- had ethnic-cleansing undertones: Zeevi saw transfer as a way of eliminating Arabs and the demographic threat they represent to the Jewish state. Of course, it was odious to Palestinians.

To Issam Makhoul, an Arab member of the Knesset who struck a discordant note among the numerous Israelis waxing poetical about Zeevi's "love of the land," it was "a disaster for Israeli democracy to have a representative of this idea [transfer], not only in the Knesset but in government."

"He was a racist, an extremist and very fundamentalist in his views of occupation and settlements," said Makhoul. He recalled Zeevi "taking the podium to threaten us [Arab members of Knesset] and saying: 'Remember 1948, remember we are strong and we can get rid of you.'"

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