The visit, which other foreign leaders have avoided, was meant to underscore Obama's understanding that the modern state of Israel traces its roots to the Bible, not to the Holocaust. That history, in the minds of many Israelis, gives the state a greater claim against Arab opposition to the land that comprises their modern state.
An Austrian journalist, Herzl identified rising anti-Semitism in late 19th-century Europe and conceived the Zionist movement — a project to create a Jewish, democratic state in Palestine. He died in 1903 and was reburied on Mount Herzl the year after the state of Israel's creation in 1948.
As is Jewish custom, Obama then laid a stone on Herzl's tomb, a sign of respect and a visible sign of a visit to someone who has died.
Then Obama walked to Rabin's grave, where he also laid a stone that administration officials said was taken from the grounds of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington.
Rabin fought for Israel's independence in 1948, and as a prime minister signed the 1993 Oslo accords with Yasser Arafat, then chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
In addition to formally recognizing Israel and the PLO, the agreements set out a path toward the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The accords also created the Palestinian Authority, giving Palestinians limited self-rule for the first time since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
Rabin and Arafat, along with Peres, the foreign minister at the time, shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.
The following year, Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish extremist opposed to the accords, and Rabin's grave has been a common stop for U.S. presidents ever since. Obama declined to visit Arafat's tomb during a Thursday visit to Ramallah, another customary gesture for many visiting dignitaries.
Near Rabin's grave site on Friday, six members of the late Israeli prime minister's family — including a daughter, a son, a granddaughter and a grandson — stood beneath an evergreen awaiting Obama.
"A remarkable man," Obama said as he shook hands with Dalya Rabin-Pellosof, Rabin's daughter.
The group chatted before Obama stepped to the grave, set down his stone and adjusted a wreath placed there by two American military personnel.
After then visiting the Hall of Children at Yad Vashem, the hilltop Holocaust memorial near the Mount Herzl cemetery, Obama said, "For here we see the depravity to which man can sink, the barbarism that unfolds when we begin to see our fellow human beings as somehow less than us, less worthy of dignity and of life."
"And yet, here, alongside man's capacity for evil, we also are reminded of man's capacity for good — the rescuers, the Righteous Among the Nations who refused to be bystanders," he added. "And in their noble acts of courage, we see how this place, this accounting of horror, is, in the end, a source of hope."
Obama then set off to visit the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, just south of Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank. The church is built on the purported birthplace of Jesus.
A sandstorm grounded Obama's planned helicopter ride to Bethlehem, forcing him to drive the route. The territory is separated from Israel by a 24-foot high cement barrier that Israel built a few years ago to keep Israelis and Palestinians apart.
The barrier, designed to cut down Palestinian suicide bombings at the time, runs deeply into the West Bank at certain points along its more than 400-mile route. Israeli officials say it could someday serve as the state's de facto border.
Scattered street crowds were on hand as Obama's motorcade entered Palestinian territory. One group of storekeepers waved and blew kisses at the motorcade.
But there were also a couple of large protest signs. "No return, no peace," one said, apparently referring to the issue of refugees. "Gringo, return to your country," said another.
After visiting Bethlehem, Obama was scheduled to leave for Amman, Jordan, where he will meet with King Abdullah II.
The stop, concluding his first trip to the Middle East in four years, will serve as show of support for Abdullah, a U.S. ally who is confronting a mounting humanitarian crisis from the massive cross-border flow of Syrian refugees, mounting calls from inside his country for faster political reform, and increasing domestic frustration over the lack of an Israeli-Palestinian peace process in a country whose majority is of Palestinian descent.
