I don't think we've ever had a situation where so much of our politics depends on one person.

The conspiracy theories have never had it better.

He enjoys the status of a father figure. He's not anymore conceived of as a normal politician but a larger-than-life figure. He's almost like a museum-type of man. There's a feeling that the last tycoon is gone now.

It's like everybody's a relative: the whole country's glued to the radio or the TV, waiting for details from the hospital.

Yes, Hitler is in Tel Aviv and the sky isn't falling. No, this doesn't mean that Israeli hearts are coarsened to the memory of the Holocaust; on the contrary ? the Holocaust is planted so deep in the components of Israeli identity that almost nothing can get to it.

The truth is that deep down, the Israelis are still convinced that the presence of thousands of settlers of a hostile population of 1.3 million Palestinians is a situation that could not last.