The United Nations General Assembly on Thursday voted 114-18, with 44 abstentions, in favor of a resolution adopting the Goldstone Report into the recent Gaza war. The report accuses Israel of widespread war crimes during its month-long operation to curb Palestinian rocket fire on its population centers.
The resolution demands that both Israel and the Palestinian Authority carry out independent investigations into the accusations made by Goldstone. However, "independent" was a relative term, since the resolution also stipulated that the investigations and conclusions must be deemed "credible" by the nations making up the UN General Assembly.
It is assumed that any Israeli investigation that absolves Israeli soldiers from wrongdoing will not be given a stamp of approval.
If those investigations are not carried out within three weeks, or if their conclusions are not accepted by the General Assembly, the resolution calls for the UN Security Council to take action on the matter and to refer Goldstone's accusations to the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
Israel hopes that the US will use its veto power in the Security Council to prevent the report from going any further.