Marinated in the milk and honey of hyperbole, Trump sat there and beamed

The president is never shy to highlight his own virtues. At the Knesset in Jerusalem, there were a few who ran him close on a day of adulation so rapturous that he nearly forgot to mention the hostages, says Sean O’Grady

As you might expect, the “sermon near the Mount”, as delivered by Donald Trump to the Knesset in Jerusalem, was less a case of “Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the sons of God” as “Blessed are you lot to have me, and you will call me your peacemaker.”

With the exception of a heckler rapidly dispatched by the parliamentary guards (Trump, naturally, was impressed by their “efficiency”), the various Israeli statesmen on parade seemed to be in some sort of competition to heap the most sycophantic praise on a prophet who, it must be said, differs from Jesus Christ in several crucial respects.

Benjamin Netanyahu called him Israel’s greatest friend ever in the White House, nominated him, again, for the Nobel Peace Prize, and said he should also get his own nation’s greatest honour, the Israel Prize, though you suspect Trump wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less than the freehold on the entire state of Israel, brimming with “potential” as he put it. The speaker of the Knesset, Amir Ohana, even compared Trump’s stature to Cyrus the Great, the ancient Persian king who lived two and a half thousand years ago and freed the Jews from Babylonia. (The Israelite prophet Isaiah claimed Cyrus as a messiah, by the way.)

Benjamin Netanyahu called the US president Israel’s greatest friend ever in the White House (Getty)

A man most dismiss as having the morals of, well, a Manhattan real estate developer, is, to this figurehead of Israeli democracy, a “colossus who will be enshrined in the pantheon of history”, someone whom the Jewish people will remember “thousands of years from now”. Like a bad version of the old Burt Bacharach classic, Ohana finally overreached himself by saying – indeed, almost singing – “what the world needs now… are more Trumps”.

Marinated in the milk and honey of hyperbole, Trump just sat there and beamed, his head tilting from side to side occasionally. It was as if he was thinking about whether comparing him to King David might or might not be quite hitting the mark. He took the praise anyway, and returned it, advising the Israeli president to give Netanyahu a full pardon on the corruption charges he faces because “cigars and champagne – who the hell cares?” President Herzog at least had the decency to look embarrassed; Netanyahu just put on a crooked smile.

But of course, Trump is his own warm-up act. The Golden Dome nearby inspired an overlong oration even by his standards, a Trumpian “golden weave” as you might call it. Nicely turned inspirational phrases about the peace plan that were composed for him by the White House wordsmiths were abandoned every time Trump fancied going off on one about the usual suspects.

And out they tumbled, in all-too-familiar fashion: Biden, Obama, the war in Ukraine “that would never have a happened” if he’d been president, the size of the bombs dropped on Iran by the “beautiful B2s”, how they’d won the First World War, the Second World War, and “everything in between”, how happily married Jared and Ivanka were, how many wars he’s stopped, America being “a dead country” a year ago and now “the hottest in the world”, how much he liked saying “Abrahaam” rather than Abraham, and on and on and on.

There were effusive overtures to Steve “Henry Kissinger who doesn’t leak” Witkoff and air force general Dan “Raizin” Caine. There were 22 standing ovations. No wonder it took him 20 minutes to first mention the hostages. Trump even declared that his plan represented “the miracle of the desert”. Well, we all know who else used to perform miracles around the Holy Land, don’t we?

Overall, if his diplomacy shows Trump at his unexpected best, this speech was him at his worst, like he is at those ghastly rallies. Miga, or “Make Israel Great Again”, it felt like, with no one in any doubt about who was responsible.

Trump’s addiction to flattery and grotesquely over-the-top compliments has reached the stage where every world leader who meets him feels obliged to go one better than the last one. The obeisance is now becoming satirical, like a children’s fable. The day may soon come when the emperor of Japan will offer to darn Trump’s socks in return for a trade deal.

It’s a process that will lead to even more ridiculously cynical exchanges during the summit at Sharma el-Sheikh – it has already resulted in an awkward arm wrestle with Emmanuel Macron as the pair’s “grin and grip” photocall degenerated into a display of competitive manliness and entirely bogus mutual affection. That was very much more grip than grim, and painful to witness. If only someone would pipe up and declare what we all know about Trump, wannabe blessed peacemaker and convicted felon – “He’s not the messiah, he’s a very naughty boy”. I’m not holding my breath.