Israel has received a guarantee from Russia that they will oppose any discussion of the Goldstone report, whose recommendations were endorsed by a vote at the UN Human Rights Council on 16 October.

By Karl Dowling

The guarantee comes after Russia was among the 25 countries that voted in favour of endorsing the report, which investigates allegations surrounding the Gaza war and accuses both Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes, at last Friday’s meeting in Geneva.
 

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who previously said that "relations between Israel and Russia must rise to a level of strategic partnership,” and whose policies are based on strategic dialogue with Russia, was dealt a huge personal blow by the Russian vote at Geneva.
 

Lieberman had reportedly received a guarantee from his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov that Russia would not vote in favour of the report.
 

Russia passed a letter of clarification explaining their vote to the deputy director for Euro-Asian affairs at the Israeli Foreign Ministry Pinchas Avivi over the weekend, according to Israel Radio.
 

Following the vote, Lieberman lambasted countries critical of Israel such as Sweden, Norway, Turkey and China, but never mentioned Russia.
 

Meeting
Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that in a meeting between the Russian ambassador to Israel, Peter Stegnyi and Avivi, the Israeli argued that the Russians "could have joined the group of countries who voted against or abstained," adding that "we were very hurt by your behaviour, especially following the assurances you had given us on the matter."
 

Stegnyi claimed that the Russians were left with no choice having failed at their attempts to moderate the wording of the resolution owing to the stance of the Western countries.
 

The Russian Ambassador has also said that while Russia supported the adoption of the report at the Human Rights Council, they do not support its transfer to either the Security Council or the International Criminal Court. He added that Israel should investigate itself and the peace process should not be damaged as a result of the report.
 

The report recommended that both Israel and Hamas launch credible investigations into the accusations with international monitors overseeing the process. If either side fails to do this within 6 months the report recommends an ICC referral.