Israel has become the United State’s de facto 51st state. That fate was always inescapable under the presidency of Donald Trump who has catered to the Middle Eastern country’s every whim. The US, it is well known, comes closest to the idea of consummate federalism, and so, states still enjoy certain rights which the federals could never legally alienate. So, too, Israel. While it can to some extent resist Mr Trump’s loud wishes for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be forgiven his financial shenanigans over which he is still undergoing trial, the entire State of Israel has, however, become beholden to the US under Mr Trump.

When Israel attacked Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar, in September last year at the heat of the Israel-Hamas war, the US compelled Mr Netanyahu to apologise. He dutifully obliged, far more dutifully than even a US state. Israel has wished to continue the war in Iran, but the US has restrained it. It then also wished to press into Beirut to finish off, perhaps once and for all, the Hezbollah; but again Mr Trump phoned Mr Netanyahu and ticked him off using barely printable words. And that was it.

Having indulged Israel’s endless military campaigns far more than any other US president, Mr Trump has earned the right, it seems, to treat Mr Netanyahu and Israel as a whole with more condescension than he would treat any state in the US. Israel has no choice but to fall in line, perhaps because it knows it is a temporary state of affairs. But the mould has been broken.

Whether a future US president subsequently concedes so much to Israel or not, the right to treat the beleaguered country as the 51st US state is no longer in doubt. Mr Trump had, on assumption of office for his second term, desperately desired a 51st state, and had belaboured Canada and to some extent Greenland for that purpose. He didn’t need all the hassles at all, for Israel has already obliged his cravings. He should pray, however, if he has any religion in him at all, not to choke on such cravings.