Israeli Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer. Photo: Screenshot.

Settlements in the West Bank are not the root the Israel-Palestinian conflict, the Jewish state’s DC envoy said in an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program on Thursday.

Instead, Israeli Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer told reporter Willie Geist, the conflict stems from the “persistent refusal of the Palestinians to recognize a Jewish state in any boundary.”

“This is not about Israel not wanting peace, it’s about the Palestinians not wanting to end the conflict,” Dermer added.

Taking issue with outgoing US Secretary of State John Kerry’s address on Wednesday — in which Kerry assailed Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank — Dermer said: “This speech…could have been given in the first year of the Obama administration. I’m old enough to remember…that we had a crisis with the United States over the issue of settlements three months into the administration. [At] the very first meeting [between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama] in the Oval Office, the same story was told — that the two-state solution was disappearing, that action had to be taken immediately on the settlements.”

“What the president believed going in is exactly what he believes going out. It wasn’t true then and it’s not true now,” Dermer added.

Dermer called Kerry’s speech “a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Earlier this week, as reported by The Algemeiner, Dermer said Israel had “clear evidence” the Obama administration orchestrated the passage of the anti-Israeli settlement UN Security Council resolution on Friday.

“We will present that evidence to the new [Trump] administration through the appropriate channels,” Dermer told CNN’s Don Lemon. “And if they want to share it with the American people, they’re welcome to.”

Watch Dermer’s Thursday “Morning Joe” appearance below: