Hillary Clinton entered Middle East politics with a splash Monday — and there’s certainly no shortage of diplomatic challenges ahead.

At a donors conference at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, where the Palestinian Authority has been trying to raise the $2.8 billion to reconstruct war torn Gaza, Clinton said the U.S. will make good on its own $900 million donation ($300 for humanitarian relief for Hamas-controlled Gaza and $600 million for the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority) — but Hamas should make no mistake: it won’t get a dime. "We have worked with the Palestinian Authority to install safeguards that will ensure our funding is only used where and for whom it is intended and does not end up in the wrong hands," Clinton said. That’s quite a touchy subject, to be sure, and some critics questioned how we can ensure no money reaches the group, which the United States considers a terrorist organization.

The secretary of state also vowed to pursue peace in the region "on many fronts" but blasted extremist groups for disruptions. Working toward the end of conflict in the region, the Obama administration will support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but Clinton insisted her boss may try for a peace agreement between Israel and Syria, as well. Turkey’s been acting as a sort of babysitter to those two nations while they talk, and Clinton will drop in later this week to check on the nations’ progress. There are signs the Obama administration may try to pick up relations with Syria, which the Bush administration essentially severed. Clinton actually shook hands with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem today — the most official contact the U.S. has had with that country in years.

There’s no doubt peace won’t be easy in the Middle East, but Shibley Telhami, a political science professor at the University of Maryland and Arab-Israeli negotiations expert, says it’s not impossible. He told Time:

The only way American diplomacy will succeed in mediating serious progress and an ultimate end to the conflict is if you have a President of the United States who thinks its an important issue and makes it a priority. I don’t mean that you simply send the secretary of state and a special envoy. I mean being prepared to pay a price in diplomacy and politics in bringing to bear all the instruments of American diplomacy on foreign partners, Palestinian and Arab, Europeans and Israelis, and at home in the Congress. So far, President Obama has said clearly that mediating Middle East peace is important to him and to Secretary of State Clinton. The Bush Administration certainly never fully accepted that this conflict should be a central American priority.

Let’s just hope all parties are as enthusiastic to put the past aside and work toward a peaceful future.