It’s a presidential election year and President Obama wants another four years in the White House, so his promise that he “has Israel’s back” should be taken with a grain of salt. His flowery rhetoric and reassuring smiles during Monday’s public meeting at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be viewed as nothing more than campaign rigmarole. What counts is what Obama has actually done to protect Israel, especially with regard to stopping Iran’s nuclear program and preventing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from ever trying to make good on his maniacal threats to “wipe Israel off the map.”

It is difficult to find anything in Obama’s actions since taking the oath of office to reassure Israel — or its millions of supporters here in America — concerning the credibility of the president’s word. As the Jerusalem Post’s Caroline Glick notes, Obama’s favorite talking point in portraying himself as Israel’s friend is the supposedly unprecedented military cooperation between America and the Jewish state. But how was that cooperation advanced when then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates called Israel “an ungrateful ally” or later when Gates’ successor, Leon Panetta, said it was time for Israel “to get back to the damned table” with the Palestinians. Those same Palestinians, by the way, have never affirmed Israel’s right to exist and remain committed to its obliteration.