Israel’s request in Haaretz:
Israel on Wednesday asked a number of senior members of the Obama administration to assist in curbing the international fallout from the Goldstone Commission report released this week, which accuses Israel of committing war crimes in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead. . .
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised the issue Wednesday with U.S. special Middle East envoy George Mitchell, while Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon discussed it with U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice and other senior officials.
And the US response as reported by Reuters:
The United States has "serious concerns" about a U.N. investigator’s report accusing Israel and Palestinians of war crimes during their Gaza war, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations said on Thursday.
"The United States is reviewing very carefully what is a very lengthy document," Ambassador Susan Rice told reporters. South African jurist Richard Goldstone unveiled the report in New York this week.
"We have very serious concerns about many of the recommendations in the report," Rice said.
Also from the Reuters report:
Israel had criticized the investigation from the start and refused to cooperate with a mission whose mandate it said was "clearly one-sided." Both Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas rejected the 575-page document. . .
Rice said the Human Rights Council’s approach to the Gaza war investigation was deeply flawed.
"We have long expressed our very serious concern with the mandate that was given by the Human Rights Council prior to our joining the council, which we viewed as unbalanced, one-side and basically unacceptable," she said.
Although it looks like Rice will help stonewall the recommendations from the Goldstone report at the UN, she still claims the US wants to move forward the peace process:
Rice said the focus should be the future.
"This is a time to work to cement progress toward the resumption of (Israeli-Palestinian peace) negotiations and their early and successful conclusion," she said.
Why am I not optimistic?
