The numbers suggest that President Mahmoud Abbas’ bid to the United Nations General Assembly was too little, too late.

The United Nations General Assembly recognised Palestine as a “non-member state”. But it may very well be that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has already missed the boat. With the help of graphic designer, Michal Vexler, we have created an infogram to illustrate and explain how demographic changes within the West Bank obstruct the possibility of the two-state solution. The numbers suggest that Abbas’ bid to the United Nations was too little, too late.

Source for the infogram: Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, International Data Base, US Census, and Israeli Statistical Abstract, 2009, 2010, 2011.

Neve Gordon is the author of Israel’s Occupation and can be reached through his website.

Yinon Cohen is Yerushalmi Professor of Israel and Jewish Studies, Department of Sociology, Columbia University, New York, and can be reached through his website.