Any report on alleged war crimes is going to be controversial. An investigation that focuses on the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians will be even more sensitive. Thus the uproar surrounding the Goldstone report, an investigation into the behavior of the Israeli Army and Hamas militants during the war in the Gaza Strip nearly a year ago, was to be expected. But charges that the effort has been politicized obscure the key question of accountability. There must be limits to conflicts — even when waged by terrorists, freedom fighters, or other "political" groups.

The United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict was chartered by the U.N. Human Rights Council in April to look into the behavior of the Israeli military and Hamas militants during the bloody conflict they waged in December 2008 and January 2009. Israel launched its forces into Gaza to root out militants who were using the territory to launch rocket attacks against its territory. Almost 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed during the three-week conflict.

Four jurists were named to the mission, which was chaired by Mr. Richard Goldstone, a respected former South African judge who was once lead prosecutor in war crimes investigations in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. Rather than looking at the entire three-week war, the group investigated 36 incidents during the conflict that it considered representative. In a 575-page document, it concluded that Israel used disproportionate force, deliberately targeted civilians, used Palestinians as human shields and destroyed civilian infrastructure during its efforts to rid the Gaza Strip of the rockets that Palestinians had fired at Israel. It charged Palestinian militants — including Hamas, the group that now controls the Gaza Strip — of deliberately targeting civilians and trying to spread terror via rocket attacks on southern Israel.

The 47-member Human Rights Council endorsed the report with a tally of 25 for, 6 against; the remainder either abstained or did not vote. The report also recommends that the U.N. Security Council demand that both sides show within six months that they are carrying out independent investigations into the allegations. If they fail to make that showing, the report argues that the matter should be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. Reportedly, the chief prosecutor at the ICC is considering whether the court has jurisdiction to prosecute alleged war crimes in Gaza, independent of any UNSC referral.

Since the United States is a permanent member of the UNSC with a veto, and has made it clear that it considers the investigation biased and an obstacle to efforts to restart peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians, the UNSC referral is unlikely. The U.S. was one of the "no" votes in the Human Rights Council, arguing that the report was biased by focusing on Israel and included discussions of issues that went beyond its mandate.

Israel refused to cooperate with the mission and has rejected the report, calling it "one-sided" and "unjust." Israeli officials argue that it ignores their country's right of self-defense, years of rocket attacks on its territories, and the militants' use of civilians as human shields. The entire effort, Israel charged, is part of a long-standing effort to delegitimize that state and deflect attention from human rights abuses elsewhere in the world.

The most important objection to the report is political, but it is not the charge that the process has been politicized. Rather, the chief political concern is that the report could derail peace negotiations. The accusations against Israel, allege U.S. and Israeli officials, make it harder for Tel Aviv to negotiate. Even some Palestinians see the merit of that position. Mr. Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, originally agreed to delay action on the Goldstone Report on those grounds, but the ensuing uproar among Palestinians forced him to reverse course.

Politicization of this dispute is inevitable — notwithstanding the fact that the report itself identified abuses by both sides. But political overtones must not be allowed to obscure the larger issue, which is the need for accountability among militaries when they fight. The Goldstone recommendations are designed to encourage both governments to take up that task themselves: That is the purpose of the six-month period before referring the issue to the ICC. As Mr. Goldstone explained, "A culture of impunity in the region has existed far too long. The lack of accountability for war crimes and possible crimes against humanity has reached a crisis point; the ongoing lack of justice is undermining any hope for a successful peace process and reinforcing an environment that fosters violence."

This concern should transcend politics, and Israel should see that this is an issue upon which it can reclaim the moral high ground, a vantage point it has abandoned. By demanding that its soldiers and leaders hew to international law, it can demand that its adversaries do the same. Pleading the exigencies of conflict — a loophole that has been closed by the laws of war — only encourages its enemies to exploit the same opportunity. That does not serve Israel's national interest, nor does it promote peace.