By Martin Asser BBC News website, Jerusalem

Sharon's survival means the story is dying for the international media

The international media crews who rushed to Jerusalem on the news of Ariel Sharon's massive stroke are going home a week later, having reached the conclusion that the controversial Israeli prime minister will survive his brush with mortality.

The story has "died" in the unemotional parlance of news journalists. The circus is packing up and moving on.

But we leave behind a large proportion of the Israeli population in a state of nervous uncertainty about what the future holds.

Mr Sharon had become a colossus of the country's politics. His supporters, who seem to include most Israelis you meet out in the streets, just want him to get better and get back to running the country.

Of course, hardly anyone expects that actually to happen, given the seriousness of Mr Sharon's condition - but who, they ask, is there to replace him?

Limbo

Mr Sharon's standing and popularity are a remarkable phenomenon. He was expected to easily win elections on 28 March.

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Right up to his election victory in 2001, he was a hero for hard-line Israelis, a pioneer of the movement to settle occupied land, and famed for his harsh military approach towards the Arabs.

But that victory was greeted with dismay among moderates, who feared the worst. That situation has now completely reversed following Mr Sharon's initiative to pull Israeli settlers and troops out of the Gaza Strip.

The far right has become embittered and marginalised, while the left and centre has embraced Mr Sharon as a peacemaker and provider of security.

From their perspective, the Palestinians still view him as a unilateralist, quick to resort to violence, who acts only in Israel's interests and whose plans could exacerbate conflict, rather than end it.

But the loss of such an important figure has left what to many Israelis feels like an unprecedented period of limbo in the country's political progress.

Lack of trust

Shoppers out on the damp streets of west Jerusalem are certainly quick to voice their concerns about the lingering uncertainty.

Israelis consider who is best qualified to lead their country In pictures

"I don't know who I want next. I liked Sharon and I wish him the best. But I don't trust the people who want to come after him," says housewife Riki Levi.

"Everyone is talking about it, my daughter, my mother, everyone I know. We just don't know what's going to happen next."

People like Mrs Levi, who supported Mr Sharon and backed his split with Likud to form a new ruling party, Kadima, are now faced with the dilemma of supporting the new party or not.

The problem is that politics has been put on hold out of respect for Mr Sharon's health crisis - this in a country used to a daily diet of frenetic politicking and intense confrontation.

That means Kadima has not had a chance to clarify what its policies are. It is not even completely certain that Mr Sharon had fully disclosed his plans to his closest party colleagues.

Unilateral steps

It is widely assumed that Kadima will propose Israel's pullback to a secure border around the West Bank, as it did with Gaza.

In this scenario, Palestinians may be put behind the separation barrier Israel is currently building, in order that their faster demographic growth will not in the future threaten the Jewish majority in Israel.

Most big Jewish settlement areas will be annexed, with Israel not accepting the argument that they are illegal under international law.

The non-negotiating unilateralism of this plan may not be fully spelled out, given Israel's ostensible commitment to the international peace plan known as the roadmap.

Under Mr Sharon, this position went with the justification that there was no reliable Palestinian side to negotiate with.

But the position coincides with the view of many Israelis, who display a great hunger for security but not necessarily peace negotiations.

Optimistic platitudes

Until Mr Sharon's medical and political fate is decided, there can be no decisions on who Israel's next leader will be.

That means waiting for the doctor's assessment whether he is permanently incapacitated after emerging from his medically induced coma.

So the top politicians - Likud's Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Olmert and Shimon Peres of Kadima, and Labour's Amir Peretz - are left mouthing optimistic platitudes about the stricken prime minister.

It is not an easy position for any of them to be in.

"None of the nominees is suitable, but it'll be all right," says an optimistic Alan Mason, a Jerusalem property entrepreneur.

"Someone else will come along - or the current ones will prove themselves. Graveyards are full of people they called irreplaceable."