Text size  In a single phone call to his man in Geneva, Mahmoud
Abbas has demonstrated his disregard for popular action, and his
lack of faith in its accumulative power and the place of mass
movements in processes of change.  For nine months, thousands of
people - Palestinians, their supporters abroad and Israeli anti-
occupation activists - toiled to ensure that the legacy of
Israel's military offensive against Gaza would not be consigned
to the garbage bin of occupying nations obsessed with their
feelings of superiority.  Thanks to the Goldstone report, even
in Israel voices began to stammer about the need for an
independent inquiry into the assault. But shortly after Abbas
was visited by the American consul-general on Thursday, the
leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization got on the phone
to instruct his representative on the United Nations Human
Rights Council to ask his colleagues to postpone the vote on the
adoption of the report's conclusions.  Heavy American pressure
and the resumption of peace