Jan 8 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush leaves on Tuesday for Israel and the West Bank on a Middle East tour to push a fragile Israeli-Palestinian peace effort.

Here are some other major efforts at presidential Middle East peacemaking:

* Sept. 5-17, 1978 - Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin meet President Jimmy Carter for closed-door negotiations at Camp David in Maryland on a framework for Middle East peace. Talks lead to the first peace treaty between Israel and any of its neighbors, signed on March 26, 1979, and sealed with a handshake on the White House lawn.

* Sept. 13, 1993 - Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat shake hands in public for the first time, at the White House with U.S. President Bill Clinton looking on. The handshake sealed the signing of a Declaration of Principles for Arab-Israeli peace.

* Sept. 28, 1995 - Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and Gaza Strip is signed in Washington. After signing, Clinton hosts a summit attended by King Hussein of Jordan, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Rabin and Arafat.

* Oct. 15-23, 1998 - Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Arafat meet at the Wye River conference center on Maryland's Eastern Shore. An all-night session results in agreement on the Wye River Memorandum, signed at the White House on Oct. 23, which spells out how to implement the 1995 agreement.

* Dec. 15-16, 1999 - Clinton meets Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara at the White House, then the United States mediates talks at Blair House, in the highest-level negotiations between the two countries.

* Jan. 3-10, 2000 - Clinton joins Barak and Shara several times to help mediate peace talks in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Another round of negotiations is postponed after disagreement over the fate of a few hundred square yards (square metres) of land by the Sea of Galilee.

* July 11-25, 2000 - Clinton holds a summit with Barak and Arafat at Camp David. Marathon meetings collapse without agreement on a framework accord on final status issues.

* Nov. 27, 2007 - At an international conference in Annapolis, Maryland, hosted by President George W. Bush, Israeli and Palestinian leaders pledge to try to reach a peace deal by the end of 2008. The promise is met with some skepticism due partly to the previous hands-off policy to peacemaking that Bush had mostly adhered to for seven years since taking office. (Reporting by Deborah Charles; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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