Let’s talk about the gulf between Obama’s policies and rhetoric. On the one hand, the Obami reversed a Bush-era decision to exit the notorious UN Human Rights Council, where the likes of Libya (and maybe Iran!) will make pronouncements on Israel’s human-rights record. Today this report emphasizes the antics of three-ring circus that now carries the U.S. stamp of legitimacy:

Israel charged Monday that the United Nations Human Rights Council does not believe it has the right to self defense against the rockets which Gaza Palestinians launch against its citizens on the southern border.

“You have done nothing about it and you expect that Israel do nothing either,” said Israel’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva. Roni Leshno Yaar.

He spoke during a day-long debate about Israel’s actions in the West Bank and Gaza. Later this week the council is expected to vote on four resolutions regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

One resolution affirms the Palestinian right to self determination. A second initiates the creation of an independent committee to monitor compliance by Israel and the Palestinians with the Goldstone Report call for both parties to hold independent transparent investigations into human rights abuses during Israel’s military incursion in Gaza in January 2009 and the Palestinian rocket attacks against Israeli citizens.

Two other resolutions accuse Israel of a host of human rights abuses against Palestinians and take it to task for continued settlement building, including east Jerusalem.

Hillary today waxed lyrical about standing with Israel and declared: “The United States has also led the fight in international institutions against anti-Semitism and efforts to challenge Israel’s legitimacy. We led the boycott of the Durban Conference and repeatedly voted against the deeply flawed Goldstone Report. This administration will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself.” But by their policy choices, the Obami have — in fact — empowered the “efforts to challenge Israel’s legitimacy.” Why not walk out of the UN Human Rights Council once and for all? Or is that too great a price to pay for being a friend to Israel?

AIPAC is encouraging the administration to take issues of concern behind closed doors. Fair enough. No ally deserves to be publicly humiliated. But the real goal, to which Howard Kohr alluded, should be something far more ambitious. The administration has to end its bad policies, not simply its hysterical rhetoric. Until it recognizes that the policy of ingratiating ourselves with the Muslim World and distancing ourselves from Israel is fundamentally flawed, the rest is just atmospherics.