Israel Hints at Limits in Settlement Building

Efforts had resulted in breakdown in peace efforts with Palestinians

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted on Monday that Israel was ready to confine Jewish settlement expansion to the blocs of occupied territory it wants to keep under any peace deal with the Palestinians, in a nod to U.S. efforts to revive stalled negotiations.

Settlement construction was cited as a key reason for the breakdown of U.S.-sponsored peace talks in 2010, and a stumbling block to Secretary of State John Kerry's latest efforts to revive negotiations towards founding a Palestinian state in land Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

Netanyahu told Parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that he wanted to resume peace talks, but that construction in the settlements in the West Bank would continue, "and continues today".