Editor's Note: The title of this assessment has been modified to more accurately reflect its content.

Israel's two latest elections have left it without a government and, for the first time, any major party committed to a two-state solution with the Palestinians. For Israel's remaining right-wing and nationalist factions, the path has never been clearer to accomplish their long-sought goal of steadily annexing territory in the West Bank. But doing so will require a permanent policy for the millions of Palestinians who live there. 

Growing nationalist sentiment at home indicates Israel won't make them citizens. And the state of global migration means it won't find new homes for them elsewhere either. Instead, Israel will most likely opt to relegate Palestinians to a second-class existence. Seizing control of the West Bank without giving its Arab residents political rights, however, will risk not only irking its key allies but emboldening the political and social forces around the world that seek to isolate Israel from the international community.

A New Nationalist Context

Israel's venerable left-wing Labor Party is one of the few major Israeli parties still committed to a formal two-state solution, which would offer Palestinians territory in exchange for peace. But the party has largely collapsed since the Sept. 17 election, as have most of Israel's smaller leftist factions. In their place have emerged more centrist parties, including the Resilience Party, which supports maintaining some kind of dominance in the West Bank to deter the creation of a Palestinian state. Meanwhile, the right-wing parties that favor annexation, such as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud, have grown stronger as well. With this political shift at home, Israel will be increasingly pressured to move toward taking further control of the West Bank. But in doing so, its leaders won't be able to rely on its old strategies of migration, expulsion and immigration.

Varying tactics have been used over the decades to maintain Israel's Jewish character. In the early years, Jewish immigration brought people in, while Palestinian migration and expulsion, especially after the 1948 war, sent non-Jewish people out. High Jewish birthrates in Israel initially kept the population growing as well. After the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel took military control of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and Arabs. But to preserve Israel's Jewish character and limit the influence of remaining Arabs in the country, the Israeli government committed to the principle of "land for peace" — that is, surrendering conquered territory in exchange for regional acceptance and peace treaties from otherwise hostile nations.

But the demographic factors that once justified this strategy are waning. The last great wave of Jewish immigration was in the 1990s, which brought 1 million people from the collapsed Soviet Union to Israel. And Jewish immigration to the country has since dramatically slowed, as have secular Jewish birthrates.

Stuck in the West Bank

Meanwhile, today's more nationalistic global communities have left Israel with fewer historically friendly places to encourage Palestinians to migrate to. Neighboring states like Lebanon and Jordan already have large Palestinian refugee populations dating back to the 1948 war. And their cash-strapped governments are unwilling to take more migrants for fear of upsetting their own delicate demographic balances. Syria — still in the midst of civil war — remains an unattractive destination, while Egypt struggles to provide enough jobs for its own people let alone more Palestinian youth. Despite its political support of the Palestinian cause, Turkey is also grappling with its own economic woes, as well as anti-Arab sentiment caused in large part by its Syrian refugee burden.

Gulf Arab states have traditionally served as sponges for Palestinian labor, but are also often quick to target and expel foreign workers to create jobs for their own people. In preparing their traditionally oil-dependent economies for a post-hydrocarbon world, countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are in the midst of structural economic reforms, including policies designed to encourage their own citizens to go to work. And as a result, the demand for expatriate labor in the region, including for Palestinians, is shrinking.

Further abroad, Europe (and in particular, Western Europe) has historically been a common destination for Palestinians. But after the Syrian refugee crisis of 2015-16, few European states have the political ability (or will) to embrace new migrants, while the eurozone's wider economic slowdown dims the Continent's allure as well.

In the past, many Palestinians have also found refuge in Latin American countries such as Honduras, Mexico and Brazil. But these countries are facing economic and security problems in addition to their own rising tides of anti-migrant sentiment, which will make them wary to add to their already large Palesentian diaspora populations. North America provides little solace either as the United States tightens its requirements for both asylum and immigration.

Other, more far-off Asian countries such as Japan and India have traditionally weak relationships with the Palestinians. Some, like China, are building up ties with Israel to access the country's vibrant tech and educational sectors. Those ties could theoretically become strong enough for Israel to broach the subject of increased Palestinian migration to their countries, but likely not anytime soon.

A De Facto Solution? 

Without any willing volunteers to welcome Palestinians, Israel can attempt forced expulsion. But the high political, diplomatic and military risks of such a move will make it highly unpalatable and thus unlikely, at least in the near term. This leaves the Palestinians largely stuck where they are, even as Israel steadily takes more control away from the Palestinian Authority. Israel thus must decide whether it will nationalize these citizens or simply leave them under Israeli control without the rights granted to Israelis living in the pre-1967 borders.

Given voters' increasingly nationalist sentiment, however, it is unlikely an Israeli government will last long if it attempts to nationalize any number of Palestinians. Right-wing parties are already alarmed by the increasingly organized Arab electorate in Israel, with the Arab-dominated Joint List party now having the third-largest number of seats in the Knesset after its unexpectedly strong performance in the Sept. 17 ballot. Israel's left-wing parties have never had the political will to nationalize Palestinians in Israel either; the Labor Party has always argued that Israel's Jewish majority is paramount, too. Therefore, there's a strong possibility that Palestinians in the West Bank will increasingly end up living under a de facto permanent occupation without political rights.

The Price of Purity

Leaving Palestinians in this diplomatic limbo, however, is not without consequences, as it risks alarming many otherwise friendly states. In recent years, Gulf Arab states have sought to strengthen their ties with Israel to fend off their common foe of Iran. But with the prospect of a Palestinian state ever more distant, these countries will be forced to recalibrate their warming relations. Even those that have publicly stated their desire for closer ties with Israel, such as Oman and Bahrain, will be unable to risk the domestic backlash of cozying up to a government that refuses to give political rights to the Palestinians.

Neighboring states like Egypt and Jordan, both of whom have peace treaties with Israel, will also feel intense domestic pressure to take action against this more right-wing Israel. This could include cutting cooperation or more overtly joining international condemnation and isolation campaigns against Israel.

The more liberal governments in Europe and the Americas, meanwhile, will be granted more ammunition for their criticism of Israel. Left-wing activists and organizations in these countries will also gain political capital and greater public backing as the situation on the ground in Israel and the West Bank confirms their more strident accusations against Israeli policy. This includes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which will be even more empowered to target companies and governments still doing business with Israeli entities in its effort to isolate the country and change its policies.

Friendly governments in the United States and the United Kingdom will stick with Israel in the short term. But when current U.S. President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson inevitably move from power, these emboldened anti-Israel forces may have substantial say in future arms transfer and aid deals between Israel and its Western partners.

By annexing more of the West Bank and relegating the Palestinians living there to second-class citizens, Israel's right-wing may finally achieve its goal of protecting the country's cherished Jewish character. But doing so will come at the cost of its good standing with much of the international community, and could stymie Israel's ability to carry out more overt economic, political and diplomatic activities with the rest of the world for decades to come.