Behold, I have set the land before you: go in and possess the land which the LORD swore unto your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give unto them and to their seed after them.’ (Deuteronomy 1:8)

Following a meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, US Secretary of State John Kerry told the media that the United States views Israeli settlements as ‘illegitimate’ on Wednesday, according to the Jerusalem Post. Kerry called on Israel to limit construction so that the peace negotiations can continue.

“Let me emphasize at this point the position of the United States of America on the settlements is that we consider them… to be illegitimate,” Kerry said after discussions with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The PA has said they are contemplating pulling out of the negotiations after Israel announced it had approved roughly 3,5000 new homes in east Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria in conjunction with the release of 26 Palestinian murderers.

Kerry made the comments in responding to Palestinian frustration over Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and stressed that “at no time” did the Palestinians agree to accept the settlements as a part of a negotiated peace accord.

Kerry, faced with grim Israeli and Palestinian assessments of progress in peace talks, said on Wednesday that Washington was not giving up on a deal.

“As in any negotiation there will be moments of up and moments of down, and it goes back and forth,” Kerry said in Bethlehem, in the West Bank, where he met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

“But I can tell you that President Obama and I are determined, and neither of us will stop in our efforts to pursue the possibility (of peace),” he said.

Abbas, in a speech broadcast on Monday, said that after all the rounds of negotiations “there is nothing on the ground”.