TIMELINE - U.S. role in Middle East peace moves

(Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush arrived in the Middle East on Wednesday facing broad scepticism over his chances of securing an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal before he leaves office in eight months.

Here is a short timeline of U.S. involvement in Middle East peace efforts over the past 30 years:

1978 - Closed-door negotiations with U.S. President Jimmy Carter at Camp David between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin are seen as a breakthrough for U.S. peace efforts. A peace treaty is signed in March 1979.

1988 - U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz proposes an international Middle East peace conference to include the Soviet Union. Arab states reject the plan as it excludes the Palestine Liberation Organisation

-- In December the U.S. starts dialogue with the PLO after its leader Yasser Arafat renounces terrorism and the Palestine National Council, the Palestinian parliament-in-exile, implicitly recognises Israel.

September 13, 1993 - At White House, Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin make historic handshake, sealing outline for limited Palestinian self-rule under interim peace accord secretly negotiated in Oslo, Norway.

October 26, 1994 - Israel and Jordan sign a peace treaty in a ceremony, attended by U.S. President Bill Clinton, at their border.

October 1-2, 1996 - Clinton convenes emergency White House summit with new Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Arafat after unprecedented gun battles and protests over the opening of a tunnel near the al-Aqsa mosque, one of Islam's holiest sites in Jerusalem.

January 15, 1997 - A deal signed by the Palestinians with Netanyahu's government clears the way for the long delayed handover of 80 percent of the West Bank city of Hebron to Palestinian rule.