An ardent supporter of Israel's strategy of assassination, the far-right leader Rehavam Zeevi yesterday became the first Israeli politician felled by a Palestinian assassin since the Jewish state was created in 1948.
"It's not murder to get rid of potential terrorists, or those who have blood on their hands," Zeevi told the Guardian in an interview in March, a few days before he joined the national unity government of Ariel Sharon as tourism minister. "Each one eliminated is one less terrorist for us to fight."
Yesterday, that strategy led to Zeevi's own death. In their claim of responsibility, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Marxist group opposed to the Oslo peace accords, said they killed the ultra-nationalist to avenge the assassination of their chief, Mustafa Ali Zibri, killed by two Israeli guided missiles while at his desk in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
For Israelis and Palestinians alike, Zeevi - universally known as Gandhi - was the icon of the extreme right, the loudest advocate for the ethnic cleansing of 3m Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza, a policy known as "transfer".
"The Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza have to be transferred to their forefathers' land," he said last March. It was wrong to see this as cruel, he said. "I don't want to transfer them to live in igloos with the Eskimos. I want to send them back to live with their brothers."
The retired Israeli army major-general remained true to his far-right and virulently racist views until the very end, dying only hours before his resignation from the government was to take effect.
He pulled his small Moledet party out of the ruling coalition because he believed Mr Sharon had turned soft, after the prime minister bowed to US pressure and pulled Israeli tanks out of Palestinian-controlled areas in the West Bank city of Hebron, ending a 10-day occupation.
On the wider stage, Zeevi was also worried about the Bush administration's new peace initiative, and was pressing Mr Sharon to sack the foreign minister, Shimon Peres, to head off any prospect of resuming negotiations with the Palestinians.
Despite his extreme views, Zeevi was situated squarely within the Israeli political establishment. Unlike the Jewish extremists of Kach, whose group is outlawed by Israel and on the US State Department list of world terrorist organisations, Zeevi never openly called for violence against Palestinians.
As a sixth generation Jerusalemite on his mother's side, he won the respect of many Israelis for his unabashed patriotism and his record of military service. He fought in Israel's pre-independence militia, and called one of his children Palmach, after the Jewish underground army.
He was respected for his Hebrew erudition, and regarded as a no-nonsense and honest politician. He also enjoyed close friendships with many of Israel's leaders because of his military associations - including Mr Sharon.
Yesterday, several Israeli politicians appeared on television on the verge of tears and a deep atmosphere of mourning hung over a special session of the Knesset. In the gallery outside, leaders from the right and left lined up to extol his heroism as a commander in the pre-state Palmach militias, the depth of his knowledge of Zionist and Israeli history and individual acts of kindness.
"I am totally destroyed by this murder," Yossi Sarid, leader of the leftwing Meretz party, whose views are diametrically opposed to Zeevi's, told the Knesset. "This is horrible news from a personal point of view. Even though there may not have been anyone more distant from us in politics, but even with that distance, we did have moments of personal closeness and affection."
Despite his innocuous cabinet title, Zeevi, 75, saw himself as the "guard dog" of a Greater Israel, including the West Bank and Gaza, and, in time he believed, Jordan.
During the year-long Palestinian revolt, Zeevi stood out for his repeated calls on Mr Sharon to lay waste to the Palestinian Authority, and to assassinate Yasser Arafat.
He triggered a controversy last July by referring to Palestinians living and working illegally in Israel as "lice" and a "cancer".
Within Israel, he was known as Gandhi, a bizarre nickname which has followed him since his days in the Palmach militia when he wrapped himself in a white sheet to entertain his fellow fighters.
After serving as an army commander in the West Bank, Zeevi served as an adviser to the late prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by a Jewish extremist. He was elected to the Knesset 13 years ago on a platform espousing the mass expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza, and was minister without portfolio under Shamir.
He is survived by his wife, Yael, who discovered his body in the corridor of Jerusalem's Hyatt hotel, five children and 20 grandchildren.