(CNSNews.com) – A showdown is looming in Geneva as the United Nation's main human rights institution grapples with an explosive report accusing Israel of war crimes and laying the groundwork for its possible referral to the International Criminal Court.
 
Richard Goldstone, the South African judge who chaired a four-person fact finding mission to the Gaza Strip this year at the behest of the Human Rights Council, on Tuesday is briefing the 47-nation body on the report, first released on September 15.
 
Goldstone’s report recommends that if Israel does not launch an independent investigation into the allegations of Israeli abuses within six months, then the allegations should be referred by the U.S. Security Council to ICC prosecutors in The Hague. A similar recommendation applies to “the appropriate authorities in Gaza.”
 
Deep divisions already have emerged in the Human Rights Council (HRC) over the report. Islamic states are promoting a resolution that “fully endorses” the report and its recommendations, calls for its immediate implementation, and condemns Israel for not cooperating with the mission.
 
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s spokeswoman said Monday action was expected on the resolution before the HRC ends its current month-long session on Friday.
 
The United States, which is taking part in its first session since becoming a council member this year, has made clear its objections to the report, including the recommendation that could lead to issues being raised by bodies outside the HRC.
 
The U.S. will be represented at the council on Tuesday by Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner, who was confirmed just last week, and State Department legal adviser Harold Koh.

The stance likely to be taken by other Western nations remains unclear. European Union members abstained when the HRC resolution which created the fact finding mission came to a vote in January, unhappy that the mandate addressed alleged Israeli violations only.
 
When he accepted the position of heading the inquiry Goldstone requested that the mandate be broadened and consider actions by Hamas as well. But the report’s detractors argue that the fact a small portion of the 575-page document is critical of the terrorist group does not make up for the overwhelming focus on Israel.
 
Israel’s foreign ministry described the report as “a political assault directed against Israel and against every state forced to confront terrorist threats.”
 
Ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, parties on both sides of the dispute have been lobbying hard.
 
In Europe, Jewish organizations urged the E.U., which has eight member states in the council, to reject the report.
 
“Good, decent and civilized nations must stand up to the bullying tactics of the initiators of the commission, like Cuba, Syria and Somalia,” European Jewish Congress president Moshe Kantor said.
 
Failure by the E.U. and others to reject the report would “hammer the final nail in the coffin in an organization whose lofty mission has never been met and this can only be bad for those truly in need of a human-rights monitoring body,” he added.
 
On Capitol Hill, lawmakers from both parties have spoken out against the Goldstone report and senators are urging Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to hold the line at the HRC.
 
On the other side of the debate, the New York-based Human Rights Watch has appealed to both the U.S. and E.U. governments to support a resolution in Geneva endorsing the Goldstone report and recommendations.
 
“U.S. insistence that the report stay at the Human Rights Council and not reach the Security Council is a clear attempt to avoid justice mechanisms with teeth,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, the organization’s Middle East director.
 
“The Obama administration cannot demand accountability for serious violations in places like Sudan and Congo but let allies like Israel go free.”
 
Whitson also accused Israel of lacking “the political will to investigate itself impartially.”
 
Probes underway
 
Israel in 2005 withdrew completely from the Gaza Strip. Two years later it fell under Hamas control after violent clashes between the Islamist group and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction.

Over a number of years thousands of rockets launched by terrorists in Gaza had landed inside Israel. Citing that continuing threat, Israel launched what it called Operation Cast Lead last December, targeting Hamas and other terrorist groups.
 
Reports on the number of Palestinians killed during the Gaza operation range from 1,417, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), which says 926 of those were civilians; to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) figure of 1,166 Palestinians, of which 709 were “terror operatives” from Hamas and other groups, 295 were civilians, and 162 were men who had neither been identified as civilians nor been linked to any armed group. Israel also reported the deaths of 13 Israelis.
 
The IDF says it took great precautions during the offensive against Hamas to avoid harming civilians, “including the dropping of leaflets, broadcasting warnings in local Palestinian media, and placing numerous phone calls to homes.”
 
It accused Hamas of fighting from civilian neighborhoods, and said the group had “booby-trapped homes, fired from schools, and used civilians as human shields.”
 
The Israeli government does have a number of probes underway into IDF conduct during the operation, arising from complaints from a variety of source, including the United Nations and non-governmental organizations.
 
“We are now pursuing two dozen criminal investigations regarding events that occurred in Gaza,” Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal on Friday.
 
“We don’t need the Human Rights Council, Richard Goldstone, or anyone else to teach us how to maintain the democratic principles which are our lifeblood.”