It’s a good thing we’re not having any kind of recession or financial crisis or massive deficit or anything like that here in the US, so we can afford to send $200 million in aid to Palestinians.

And that’s just the first installment — we’ve promised almost a billion smackeroos to Fatah.

WASHINGTON, July 24 (Reuters) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday there had been some progress toward reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in the “near future” and announced $200 million in U.S. aid to the Palestinians.

Clinton said the money, which is part of a $900 million pledge she made in March at a donors conference in Egypt, was transferred directly to the Western-backed Palestinian Authority and would help it meet a budget shortfall.