President Trump arrived Monday morning in Israel, kicking off the second leg of his first foreign trip as president.

CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan says Mr. Trump was greeted upon touching touching down in Tel Aviv by nearly every Israeli cabinet minister, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Never before has a U.S. president’s first foreign trip included a visit to Israel. Thank you, Mr. President,” said Netanyahu during a welcome ceremony at the airport.

Mr. Trump then made brief remarks at the same podium, saying he was in the country to “reaffirm the unbreakable bond between the United States and the state of Israel,” and expressing optimism that through cooperation, his administration and its partners might seize a “rare opportunity to bring stability and peace to this region.”

Mr. Trump is scheduled to hold meetings with Netanyahu and, separately on Tuesday, with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, to test the waters for jumpstarting the dormant Middle East peace process.

President Trump has declared in the past that finding a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is “maybe not as difficult as people have thought,” and he arrived for his first visit to Israel full of promises, but with few concrete ideas on how to solve the problem that has vexed U.S. presidents for decades.
Speaking alongside Israeli President Reuven Rivlin shortly after his arrival, Mr. Trump said there was a “great feeling for peace throughout the Middle East,” expressing optimism at the start of his visit.

People have had “enough of the bloodshed and the killing,” he said.

Despite the president’s remarks about the peace process, White House aides have tried to play down expectations for significant progress during his stop.

Mr. Trump has handed son-in-law Jared Kushner and longtime business lawyer Jason Greenblatt the assignment of charting the course toward a peace process. The White House-driven effort is a sharp shift from the practice of previous U.S. administrations, which have typically given secretaries of state those reins.

Kushner and Greenblatt are accompanying Mr. Trump on his two-day visit.