FACTBOX: Condoleezza Rice's Middle East shuttle diplomacy

(Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said at the start of a Middle East visit on Thursday that a pending Israeli election may make it very difficult to meet the U.S. goal of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal this year.

Here are details of her Middle East trips since peace talks were resumed at an international conference in Annapolis, Maryland in November 2007:

January 8-11, 2008 - Rice accompanies U.S. President George W. Bush to bolster the Annapolis conference. Bush paints an upbeat picture from talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

March 3-5 - Rice ends a three-day visit by dispatching an envoy to Cairo, which is trying to calm tensions between Israel and Hamas. Rice urges Olmert and Abbas to get negotiations launched in Annapolis back on track.

March 29-31 - After calls by Rice, who shuttled between Israel and Jordan, Israel announces plans to ease some restrictions on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

May 3-4 - Rice spends much of her trip discussing checkpoints and manned roadblocks Israel has erected across the West Bank.

May 13-14 - Rice travels with Bush to Israel to mark its 60th anniversary.

June 14-15 - Rice says Israel's settlement building is harming peace negotiations.

August 25 - Rice repeats that message during two-day visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank that coincides with a report charting a surge in settlement construction.

November 6 - Rice arrives on a four-day visit to the region, where she plans to attend a meeting of Middle East peace mediators, known as the Quartet, in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.