Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began Sunday's cabinet meeting by telling the ministers he was going to make an official address next week, detailing his notions as to the best way to achieve peace and security for Israel.
"We aim to achieve peace with the Palestinian and the Arab world in cooperation with the US," he said, "I intend to achieve a stable peace in which the security of Israel's citizens will be ensured."
In response to US President Barack Obama's historic speech in Cairo last week, Shas Chairman Eli Yishai said Israel would continue settlement expansion "in accordance with the understandings we had with the previous US administrations."
It is unlikely, he added, that the decision might "send Israel on a collision course with the US.
"There is no need to panic," he said, "While the Obama administration has a different outlook (regarding the settlements), we must uphold our principles."
Minister Yisrael Katz (Likud) said during the cabinet meeting "the natural course of life in the settlements cannot be stopped. We are not building new settlements, but we will have to act in accordance with our current policy."
Fellow Likud member Yuli Edelstein said Israel could be "incorporated nicely in Obama's vision along with the moderate states of the Middle East.
"This does not obligate us to transfer Jews, but it does obligate us to continue the talks with the US Administration regarding our continued presence in the West Bank," the information minister told cabinet.