JERUSALEM -- And he sought to hit the right notes after disappointing Israelis in 2009 with his speech in Cairo that appeared to suggest that Israel was created in response to the Holocaust. Instead, he pointedly called Israel the “historic homeland of the Jewish people” and noted a history that dates back “more than 3,000 years.”

He pledged a lasting partnership, saying that the U.S. relationship with Israel is in both countries’ national security and economic interests.

“I’m confident in declaring that our alliance is eternal, it is forever,” Obama said, repeating the word in Hebrew, lanetzach.

With both starting new terms, it was evident that Obama and Netanyahu were trying to find a way to work together. At one point, as Obama quoted a letter from Netanyahu’s late brother, Yoni, an Israeli commando who died in the raid on Entebbe in 1976, Netanyahu appeared visibly moved.

“You need, you see, a second term as president and a third term as prime minister,” Netanyahu said in response to a question about why the Israeli public hadn’t embraced Obama. “That really fixes things.”

Obama heads Thursday to Ramallah in the West Bank, where Palestinians are increasingly gloomy about the prospects for peace in part because of the rapid expansion of Israeli settlements across land the Palestinians want for a state. Neither Obama nor Netanyahu mentioned the settlements or border disputes in their remarks, sticking mostly to broad calls for peace.

Though peace talks stalled in 2010, Obama defended his effort at the press conference, calling the issue “really hard” and noting that it has lingered for 60 years.

“The parties involved have some profound interests that you can’t spin, you can’t smooth over,” Obama said. “It is a hard slog to work through all of these issues.”

Peace between he and Netanyahu appeared easier as they worked from the start of the visit to set a new tone. Netanyahu was the first person Obama embraced as he stepped off the plane, and at one point the cameras caught the two of them shedding their suit jackets and walking across the tarmac together, wind ruffling their nearly identical blue ties.

They joked about who had a harder time: Netanyahu pulling together a coalition government or Obama working with Congress. They lauded each other’s wives and complimented the handsomeness of their children. The jokes even extended to the red line that Netanyahu has pressed Obama to draw more sharply against Iran. Walking to tour the Iron Dome anti-missile system at the airport, Obama joked that “Bibi” is "always talking to him" about red lines.

Israel’s U.S. Embassy unveiled a new video on the eve of the visit, making fun of the press focus on the pair’s relationship. It shows them laughing at a newspaper headline that questions their relationship, as the theme from The Golden Girls’ “Thank You for Being a Friend” begins playing.

“It’s high time that the new government in Israel and the newly elected administration in D.C. coordinate policy and synchronize clocks on all three issues . . . Iran, Syria and Israeli-Palestinian relations,” said retired Israeli Brig. Gen. Michael Herzog.

McClatchy special correspondent Sheera Frankel contributed from Tel Aviv.

Video: Obama's Israel Visit: Reassurance and Red Lines