...So, although Goldstone did not find any direct corroboration for the terrible stories he tells of heartless IDF soldiers consistently picking out and shooting women and children from close range, he felt that "Ram"'s supposed testimony to the Rabin Academy acts as a reasonable proof of the Palestinian Arab testimony.

The problem is that after Ha'aretz published the Rabin Academy talks, the other Israeli newspapers went to great lengths to find out whether the stories told were true. This specific incident was especially heinous and one of the soldiers that recounted the incident was tracked down by Israel's Channel Two, and he told the reporter that he did not witness the incident and in fact was not even in Gaza!...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has nixed the idea of setting up an inquiry committee into alleged Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip as a means of dealing with the Goldstone Commission's report.

...Netanyahu, who held two meetings on the subject on Wednesday, believes a more effective way of blocking the report would be to make it clear to the international community that referral to the ICC would sound the death knell of the peace process...

...The prime minister, they explained, fears that setting up an inquiry commission would imply that the probes now being conducted by the Israel Defense Forces are untrustworthy.

In contrast, Foreign Ministry sources said Israeli representatives overseas have been flooded with messages from friendly governments urging the establishment of an inquiry commission as the best way to block the report.

The defense minister's office said the government will therefore try to find some kind of compromise mechanism, headed by a senior legal figure such as Aharon Barak, that would show the international community Israel has stepped up its efforts to investigate the allegations.

From Israel's perspective, the best decision the Human Rights Council could make is to continue dealing with the matter itself, while the worst would be referral to either the General Assembly or the Security Council, and thence, perhaps, the ICC. Jerusalem and Washington are coordinating closely on diplomatic efforts to achieve the former result, and are currently focusing on trying to win over the European Union, whose member states have yet to reach a consensus on the matter.

In a briefing held Wednesday for ambassadors from the Asia-Pacific region, Netanyahu warned that referral to the ICC would deal a mortal blow to the peace process - as well as to democratic states' ability to fight terror...