JERUSALEM — Former Israeli President Shimon Peres was laid to rest Friday beneath the silent pine trees of Israel's Mount Herzl national cemetery, eulogized by Israeli leaders, family and two American presidents as a founding father who first built up Israel's military industrial complex and then sought peace with the Palestinians.

President Barack Obama led the procession at an Israeli state funeral attended by world leaders and dignitaries from dozens of countries — as well as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Peres, who died Wednesday from complications of a stroke last month, was hailed by speakers as the last leader from Israel's founding generation, a visionary who built up Israel's military power and eventually became its best-known statesman — a leader who, despite numerous political setbacks, never stopped seeking to advance Israeli-Arab reconciliation.

They paid tribute to the boy from a Jewish town in Poland who immigrated to Palestine before his extended family was killed in the Holocaust by Nazis and eventually served at the side of Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion — launching a decadeslong career in Israel's slash-and-burn political system in which Peres was reviled by many Israelis as being too willing to compromise.

“It was no secret that Shimon and I were political enemies, but over the years we became close friends,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who handed Peres one of his painful defeats by narrowly defeating him in a parliamentary election in 1996.

Standing alongside his casket, Netanyahu recalled debating with Peres into the night after he had left partisan politics to become the country's president, a mostly ceremonial post.

“Shimon claimed fervently, ‘Bibi, shalom is the true security.' I argued, ‘Shimon, in the Middle East security is a necessary condition for peace,'?” he said. “I came to the conclusion that we were both right. In the stormy Middle East, peace will only be assured with constant demonstration of our power … but power is only a means.”

Obama sat beside Netanyahu and Peres' son Nechemia during the ceremony.

Wearing a black memorial ribbon and a yarmulke in deference to Jewish custom, the president recalled discussing books and history with Peres in the White House and striking up a chemistry despite their different backgrounds and ages.

“Our friendship was rooted in that I could see myself in his history and maybe he could see himself in mine,” Obama said.

In his eulogy, Obama, who was stymied for eight years in advancing a peace process in the Middle East — in part because of skepticism in Israel about peace talks with the Palestinians and also friction with Netanyahu — gently urged Israelis to continue Peres' legacy of seeking reconciliation.

Former President Bill Clinton, in his eulogy, said he was in awe of what he called Peres' endless capacity to move beyond the most crushing setbacks to seize the possibilities of each new day.

“He never gave up on anybody; I mean, anybody,” Clinton said.

The presence of Abbas, who sat in a cemetery reserved for Israeli prime ministers and presidents, was criticized in the Arab world.

“Expressing condolences to Peres' family and Israel is a crime,” said Hamas official Bassem Naim.

The world dignitaries — including Britain's Prince Charles and French President Francois Hollande — were flanked in the front rows by Peres' three children and his grandchildren.

The families' somber faces dissolved into sobbing at a piercing rendition of one of Peres' beloved liturgies, “Our Father, Our King,” the Jewish prayer for atonement.

His daughter Tzvika Walden pulled back the curtain on home life with the man who was called “Buzhik,” a nickname for doll, by his wife, Sonia, and who used his powers of persuasion in the mundane tasks of parenting.

“To me, he was a young man who used his creative skills to get us to eat. Who cut sandwiches into triangles and diamonds,” she said. “?‘Try this.'?”

Despite being a polarizing political leader, Peres won widespread popularity among Israelis as president and in retirement.

The day before his funeral, tens of thousands of Israelis from all sides of the political spectrum filed by his casket on the plaza of the Knesset, Israel's parliament building, to pay tribute.

“Peres was a special man,” said one mother who was tugging along a toddler as they passed by the former prime minister's casket.

Standing nearby with his wife and three children was Aviv Agoor-Halevy.

“The man died, but his path died long ago,” Agoor-Halevy lamented, referring to Peres and the defunct peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

Sighing, his wife, Hagit, said she brought their children to the memorial to witness a part of history — the closing of a chapter of Israel's founding generation.

“I said we have to come because something like this will never happen again.”

Associated Press contributed.