US strategy in doubt as Abbas loses popular support

Just two months ago, many western commentators were jubilant that Mahmoud Abbas, the U.S.-supported head of both the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the interim Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA), was making a comeback and reducing the influence in Palestinian society of Hamas. But a series of events in recent weeks has sent Abbas's level of support from his people into a nosedive. The most serious has been the reaction among Palestinians to a decision Abbas or someone close to him made to postpone any further U.N. action on the recommendations of the Goldstone Report into the atrocities committed during last winter's Israel-Gaza war. Richard Goldstone, a very distinguished South African jurist and war-crimes prosecutor, presented his report to the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva on Sept. 29. It contained a recommendation that the HRC forward the report's lengthy and detailed findings regarding wrongdoing by both sides to the Security Council for possible further action. But when the HRC discussed Goldstone's report on Oct. 1, the PLO's representative requested that the HRC sit on the report until next March before doing anything further.