Unlike the "Ping-Pong diplomacy" that led to Richard Nixon's historic handshake with Mao in 1972, the incremental talks on the main issues that divide the two nations have seemed to leave officials fatigued.

Last year, the world watched Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat at the White House when they had their historic handshake of reconciliation.

Three years ago, there was hope that trust would follow the historic handshake.

FEW spectacles in recent decades have been as breathtaking as the historic handshakes between government leaders and chieftains of insurgent groups.

Legendary coach Baby Dalupan, then coaching the Veterans, summoned both players to a historic handshake at centercourt signaling the end of their bitter feud.

Seven years after President Clinton presided over a historic handshake between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in the Rose Garden, he tried one more time today to move the Middle East toward some kind of lasting peace.

The 1993 secret talks in Oslo culminated in the historic handshake on the White House lawn by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel and Mr. Arafat.

The historic handshake between the leaders of the two Koreas a week before inspired another Asian leader to reach out to a longtime adversary.

The agreement was sealed with the historic handshake between Mr. Rabin and Mr. Arafat at the White House on Sept. 13, 1993.

But Yasir Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Organization, whose historic handshake with Mr. Rabin in September 1993 initiated Palestinian self-rule in occupied territories, was not expected.