JERUSALEM — Amos Yadlin, the former head of military intelligence in Israel, likes to say that Israel as a Jewish-majority democracy faces two existential threats — a nuclear-armed Iran and turning itself into a bi-national state by permanently occupying the West Bank with its 2.5 million Palestinians. And while Israel has a strategy for addressing the first threat, it has no strategy for addressing the second. One reason it doesn’t — in my view — is because of a third existential threat to Israel. And that threat is from America — particularly from President Trump, but also from pro-Israel lawmakers in Congress and from Aipac, the main Israel lobbying organization.

It’s the threat that America will love Israel to death.

By indulging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his quest for permanent Israeli control over the West Bank, Trump, the Congress and the Israel lobby are going to create a situation whereby the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank will eventually collapse. The Palestinians there will then say to Israel, as some already have, that they want Israeli citizenship. Israel will then find itself ruling over 2.5 million Palestinians with the choice of either sharing power with them on the basis of equality or systematically denying it to them.

When that happens the debate over what Israel should do will rip apart every synagogue, Jewish Federation and Jewish institution in America — including Aipac. As long as there was a credible two-state solution on the table, that debate was muted. But once that option is gone, all hell will break loose in the Jewish world and between progressives and Israel’s supporters on every U.S. college campus. It’s already started.

Up until Trump, both Democratic and Republican presidents have played the role of “reality enforcer” for both Israeli and Arab leaders. In both Israel and most Arab ruling circles, you have a mix of hard-liners, moderates and sheer crazies. The job of the U.S. president has always been to draw red lines so Israeli prime ministers or Arab leaders could say to their extremists: “Hey, I’d love to do that crazy thing you want me to do. My heart is with you. But the American president would break my arm if I did. So we’re not going to do that crazy thing you suggest, even though my heart is with you!”