WHEN Mr Benjamin Netanyahu battled successfully for the leadership of the Likud party four years ago, a rising Likud politician, Mr Tsachi Hanegbi, travelled with him on the cross country campaign bus.
When Mr Netanyahu formed his cabinet after last May's elections, he rewarded that early loyalty by naming Mr Hanegbi his minister of health.
And when a more senior cabinet position opened up a few months later, Mr Netanyahu rewarded Mr Hanegbi again, overlooking some reports of minor bully boy antics when Mr Hanegbi was a student leader at the Hebrew University, and appointing him minister of Justice.
But yesterday, that long time political alliance appeared to be coming apart as, in an effort to extricate himself from the escalating attorney general scandal, Mr Netanyahu, through his lawyer, seemed to be trying to turn Mr Hanegbi into the fall guy.
On the one hand, Mr Netanyahu's newly hired personal lawyer, Mr Ya'acov Weinroth, insisted that the prime minister had no grievances with Mr Hanegbi over the affair. But, on the other hand, the lawyer argued forcefully that it was Mr Hanegbi who was responsible for the ill fated appointment of Mr Ronnie Bar On as attorney general in mid January.
Mr Hanegbi had assured the prime minister than Mr Bar On was a good candidate for the job, Mr Weinroth said indeed that his candidacy was acceptable to the country's top legal figure, the president of the Supreme Judge Aharon Barak.
"If his justice minister tells him that the candidate is excellent, and has all the qualifications," Mr Weinroth added, "what should he [the prime minister] think?"
Mr Bar On, as it turned out, apparently had neither the appropriate qualifications nor the Supreme Court president's blessing, and had to resign after two uays.
And Mr Netanyahu, Mr Hanegbi and other leading government figures are now being investigated amid allegations that the Bar On appointment was illegally hatched, and would have led to the granting of a plea bargain for Mr Aryeh Deri.
Mr Deri, the leader of the Shas party, Mrs Netanyahu's ultra orthodox coalition partner in the Knesset, is fighting a lengthy corruption trial.
Mr Hanegbi insisted yesterday that he was "clean", and said he had no intention of following Mr Netanyahu's example and hiring a personal lawyer.
The Bar On affair is dominating headlines in Israel, to the exclusion of the looming controversy over Mr Netanyahu's plans for new Jewish housing in East Jerusalem. Some politicians, from the coalition and the opposition, are predicting the collapse of the government.
Ironically, key figures on the right of the political spectrum, the prime minister's natural home, would not be too sorry to see him go, having been infuriated that Mr Netanyahu approved the partial Israeli military withdrawal from Hebron last month.
The Labour opposition, by contrast, has no great desire for a new general election, having not yet held its own internal party vote to select a new leader to replace Mr Shimon Peres.