The country was moving toward a celebration of its 50th birthday, three years after the Rabin assassination ripped it apart.
The Rabin assassination in November of that year ended those discussions.
The sale has already been delayed a week, in part because of the Rabin assassination but also because of concern over market demand.
Such remarks today seemed to overshadow die-hard voices of public exaltation about the Rabin assassination.
The assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin a year ago brought the fears to a head.
After the Rabin assassination, he helped found Tzohar, whose aim was to lessen the tensions between religious and non-religious communities.
But should the Rabin assassination be seen as a further discrediting of the right after the massacre carried out by Dr. Goldstein?
In the wake of the Rabin assassination, it seems, many Israelis are now willing to trade a bit of mystique for a more accountable domestic intelligence organization.
Indeed, the last two and a half years have been replete with violence and unrest, including the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Israeli security, which clamped down after the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, seemed to have reached new heights in this politically stressful summer.