In the week since news first broke of negotiations between the lawyers of Benjamin Netanyahu and Attorney-General Avichai Mendelblit on a possible plea bargain to end the former prime minister’s corruption trial, his supporters seem to have quickly cycled through the five stages of grief.

First there was denial in the form of scornful scepticism. After all, the story was broken first in Ma’ariv by Ben Caspit, a veteran critic of Mr Netanyahu, so they simply dismissed it as more leaks from the State Prosecutor’s office which they see as the source of all evil.

The initial report was confirmed by more sources, including from within Mr Netanyahu’s circle; horror of horrors, it turned out that it was the defendant who had asked for the deal. Then came the second stage: anger.

The great leader had a duty to his followers to see the trial out to the bitter end, they fumed.

“A leader should go with his truth to the end, as a representative of the public, as a change-maker,” tweeted Shimon Riklin, a right-wing broadcaster.

“And if need be, to sit in prison. Yes, in prison. It’s very unpleasant to sit in prison at an advanced age. Is only comfort and abundance that motivate us, or a commitment to an ideal?” he admonished his leader.

“In the past the fighters for Israel’s freedom also died for that freedom.”

Next came the third stage of grief – the bargaining.

In the hope of convincing him to continue fighting, his supporters launched an online crowd-funding campaign to raise money to pay Mr Netanyahu’s legal bills. It was an immediate success and four million shekels have already been collected but, despite that, the plea bargain talks continued.

Then came depression, and finally the fifth stage of grief: the acceptance.

“Mr Netanyahu is a 72-year-old who has served the nation all his life, it’s his right to decide he wants a rest,” said uber-loyalist Likud MK Galit Distal-Etabrian.

“We will never give up the fight against those who slandered him.”

Mr Netanyahu can rest assured. Even if he disappoints his followers by signing the deal and resigning from the Knesset, they will not forsake him.

Which is further incentive for him to sign an agreement that removes two of the four charges against him, including the most serious, that of bribery, and guarantees that he won’t have to sit in prison for the two charges of fraud and breach of trust to which he will plead guilty.

A fine and a few months of community service will suffice.

Faithful following

Mr Netanyahu’s remaining problem with the deal is that it still requires him to admit to crimes of “moral turpitude,” which under Israeli law disqualify him from serving in a public office for at least seven years after his sentence is served.

For a man of his age, that is almost certainly the end of his political career, though in Mr Netanyahu’s case, no-one would rule out a comeback in his eighties.

But even if he has to resign both from the Knesset and his leadership of Likud, he can be confident that his large base of supporters will remain behind him for the foreseeable future and he’ll continue to wield significant influence over the party and the Israeli right-wing.

At the time of writing, the lawyers are still in talks, trying to iron out the final details. Mr Mendelblit is insisting that the accused stand up in court and admit to having received favours from the owners of telecoms giant Bezeq and that the sentence include a specific reference to “moral turpitude.”

He also wants a longer spell of community service. Mr Netanyahu is still hoping to water down those clauses in the sentence but his lawyers are pressuring him to sign.

At the end of next week, Mr Mendelblit will retire and the next attorney-general, yet to be appointed, who won’t have the same forensic knowledge of the case, will need to start from scratch. The next time a deal is on the table, it may well be even less accommodating.

A senior Israeli official with a wide knowledge of British and American politics was musing this week on the relative fortunes of the three countries’ right-wing leaders.

“Look at Netanyahu and Trump,” he said. “They’ve both lost elections recently and yet they both retain the total support of their parties and of a major chunk of the population.

“Boris Johnson, on the other hand, won the last election by a landslide, delivering an unassailable majority to his party. Yet the Tories are on the verge of dumping him.”

Is truss on the way?

Despite the three leaders often being compared to one another, there’s a fundamental difference between the former US and Israeli ones and Mr Johnson. They are not defined by any single policy.

They can even defy their base and still have their support. Mr Trump, for instance, is in favour of Covid-19 vaccines despite the anti-vaxx mood among his diehard fans.

As he once memorably said, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”

Likewise, Mr Netanyahu can defy his supporters and get away with it. If he signs the plea bargain, they will be disappointed in him but won’t abandon him. Mr Johnson, on the other hand, doesn’t command the same devotion in his party and the wider public.

“We can define Trumpism and Bibism both as widespread feelings and public movements,” said the Israeli official.

“There’s no such thing however as Johnsonism. Boris owes his success in adopting Brexit as his cause, even though he wasn’t originally a Brexiteer. With Brexit done, it was just a matter of time before he fell out of favour.”

Mr Johnson remains a figure of fascination for many Israeli politicians. For a while, there was even a fashion among the more literary-minded of them to read his biography of Winston Churchill. Mr Netanyahu read it. Foreign Minister Yair Lapid read it in the Knesset, through the long nights of the budget debate, two months ago.

Attention is now shifting to Mr Johnson’s potential successors, with Foreign Secretary Liz Truss emerging as a favourite in Jerusalem.

In the short time she has lead Britain’s foreign policy, Ms Truss has impressed her Israeli interlocutors with tougher talk on Iran than any of her predecessors. They give her part of the credit for the designation of Hamas’ political wing as a terror organisation, even though that was a decision officially made by Home Secretary Priti Patel.

She has yet to visit Israel in her current capacity. However, her first and so far only visit was quite recently, back in June, as Trade Secretary, though few imagined at the time that she could be headed for Downing Street.

She was guest of honour at a reception in Haifa Port on the deck of frigate HMS Richmond, but only one Israeli minister arrived for fizz with Liz.

Others are now regretting they didn’t turn up for what may have been a meeting with Britain’s next prime minister.