Museums, missiles and motorcades: Israel's previous US presidential visitors

On June 16, 1974, Richard Nixon landed in Israel, becoming the first US president to visit the Jewish state. “It is for me, as I am sure all of you can imagine, a very great moment to be standing here,” he declared from the tarmac of the recently renamed Ben-Gurion International Airport.

A few hours later, at a reception in the Knesset, Nixon urged Israel’s leaders to take risks for peace, even though, he allowed, with what has proved to be considerable understatement, it was by no means guaranteed that this goal was achievable.

“But we do know that we must try. We do know that we must begin,” he said. “There have been four wars in a little over a generation in this area, and unless we change the situation some way, somehow, there will be another war and another one, and each one, of course, is terribly costly to the nations involved and particularly to this nation.”

Nixon’s short trip, though, is remembered more for its timing — weeks before he would resign as president over the Watergate scandal — than for its content.

A visit by Jimmy Carter in March 1979 would prove much more momentous, with the US president visiting days before Jerusalem and Cairo signed their historic, taboo-breaking peace treaty.

“We are now at the very edge of turning Israel’s eternal dream of peace into reality,” Carter declared in his speech to the Knesset. “I will not pretend that this reality will be free from further challenges. It will not. And better than most, the Jewish people know that life is seldom easy. But we must make this beginning. We must seize this precious opportunity.”

It would be over 15 years until Israel saw another serving US leader visit, with Bill Clinton making the trip in October 1994, the first of four trips to Israel by the two-term president.

Since then, Israel has hosted George W. Bush and Barack Obama twice each, the last visit a lighting-fast stopover for Shimon Peres’s funeral last year.

Next week, Donald Trump will become the sixth US president to visit the Jewish State. As the White House finalizes the itinerary of the two-day trip, The Times of Israel went back to the archives and selected some of the best photos from past presidential visits.

: US President Richard Nixon inspecting a guard of honor composed of flying cadets at Ben Gurion Airport, 1974 (Yaacov Saar/GPO)

: US president Richard Nixon speaking at his welcoming ceremony at Ben Gurion airport, June 1974 (Yaakov Saar/GPO)

: US President Richard Nixon, center, with Prime Minister Rabin and US Secretary of State Kissinger working at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, June 1974 (Yaacov Saar/GPO)

: Prime Minister Menachem Begin greets US President Jimmy Carter at Ben Gurion Airport, March 1979 (Yaakov Saar/GPO)

: US president Jimmy Carter, left, addresses the Knesset plenary, Jerusalem, March 1979. (Yaacov Saar/GPO)

: US President Jimmy Carter, left, with Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and their respective wives having dinner at the prime minister’s residence in Jerusalem, March 1979 (Yaacov Saar/GPO)

: US President Bill Clinton, with sun glasses, together with President Ezer Weizman, Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, and Jordan’s King Hussein after the Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty was signed in the Arava desert, October 1994 (Avi Ohayon/GPO)

: US President Bill Clinton, Prime Minister Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat at a trilateral meeting at the Erez Crossing between Israel and Gaza, December 1995 (Avo Ohayun/GPO)

: US President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Shimon Peres review an IDF honor guard at Ben Gurion Airport, March 1996 (Tsvika Israeli/GPO)

: Illustrative: US President Bill Clinton paying his last respect to victims of recent terror attacks in Jerusalem at Mt. Herzl cemetery in Jerusalem, March 1996. (Avi Ohayon/GPO)

: US President Bill Clinton with high school students from the Beit Hinuch school in Jerusalem, March 1996 (Avi Ohayun/GPO)

: US President Bill Clinton atop Masada, as Prime Minister Netanyahu and his wife Sara look on, December 1998 (Avi Ohayon/GPO)

: US President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem in 2008, for a welcoming ceremony of the US embassy. (photo credit: Yossi Zamir/Flash 90)

: US President George W Bush lays a wreath in memory of the six million Jewish Holocaust victims in the Hall of Remembrance at the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, 11 January 2008. (Michal Fattal/Flash90)

: US President George W. Bush visits the historical Masada site. Masada is an ancient hilltop fortress in the Judean desert constructed by King Herod, where Jewish rebels struggled against the Romans and finally committed suicide before being taken prisoners by the Romans. May 15, 2008. (Ariel Jerozolimski/Flash90)

: US president George W. Bush shake hands with Benjamin Netanyahu, head of the opposition, at the Knesset on May 15, 2008. Bush delivered a speech to mark the Jewish state’s 60th birthday. (Photo credit: Lior Mizrahi/pool/FLASH90)

: US President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush during a visit to the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem, May 16, 2008. (Ancho Gosh/Flash90)

: US President Barack Obama waves as he arrives at Ben Gurion Airport on March 20 2013. (photo credit: Kobi Gideon/GPO / FLASH90)

: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama talk at Ben Gurion Airport after Obama’s arrival in Israel in March 2013. Michael Oren walks behind Obama (Via Facebook)

: Then-US president Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alongside an Iron Dome missile defense battery during Obama’s visit to Israel in March 2013. (Nati Shohat/Flash90)

: Ziv Aviram, President and CEO of Mobileye, demonstrates the driverless car to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (2R) and former US president Barack Obama (C) during an exhibition of technological innovation at the Israel Museum as Amnon Shashua (R), Mobileye‘s co-founder and chief technology officer, looks on, Jerusalem, March 21, 2013. Amnon Shashua, Photo by Kobi Gideon / GPO /FLASH90

: Former US president Barack Obama, right, with then Israeli president Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at the grave of Theodor Herzl during Obama’s visit to Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem, Friday, March 22, 2013. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

: US President Barack Obama speaks to an audience of Israeli students at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem, March 2013. (photo credit: AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

: President Barack Obama and President Shimon Peres plant a tree during a welcoming ceremony for Obama at Peres’ residence in Jerusalem on March 20, 2013. (Photo credit: AP)

: US President Barack Obama, left, shake hands with Yityish ‘Titi’ Aynaw, a 21-year old Ethiopian-Israeli woman who was the first Ethiopian-born woman to be crowned Miss Israel, at the presidential residence in Jerusalem, in March 2013, as President Shimon Peres (center) looks on. (photo credit: Avi Ohayon/Flash90)

: US President Barack Obama touches the coffin of former Israeli president and prime minister Shimon Peres after speaking during his funeral at Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl national cemetery on September 30, 2016. (AFP/Pool/Abir Sultan)

: US President Barack Obama boards Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on September 29, 2016 as he departs for Israel to attend the funeral of former Israeli president Shimon Peres in Jerusalem. (AFP Photo/Nicholas Kamm)