No Israeli inquiry after all, or is there? Haaretz’s floaters are becoming increasingly muddled:

And while Yedioth Ahronoth reported on Wednesday that Defense Minister Ehud Barak favors the inquiry commission route, Barak himself denied the report yesterday. His office confirmed that he has asked Aharon Barak to contribute to the legal battle against the report, but said he opposes an inquiry commission.

Netanyahu also denied the Yedioth report, and his associates said the government has never seriously considered such a commission. 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.