The Bush administration has signed an agreement with the Palestinian Authority to donate $150 million, the first part of more than half a billion dollars promised by Western countries at a donors conference in Paris last year. U.S. Consul General Jake Walles and the USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) Ramallah director R. David Harden signed the agreement.

 

Under the agreement, the money will go directly to the PA budget instead of to earmarked projects, a system that Congress usually demands in order to keep the money out of the hands of Hamas terrorists.