Netanyahu’s announcement came after U.S. pressure in an attempt to revive long-frozen peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis. But Palestinians have demanded Israel completely halt Jewish settlement building.

Netanyahu’s plan does not include a building freeze in Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, a swath of the city the Palestinians want as the capital of a future state, and it would not apply to some 3,000 homes already under construction in the West Bank.

About 300,000 Israelis live in settlements across the West Bank, and an additional 180,000 Israelis live in Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, a territory annexed to Israel after it seized it in the 1967 Mideast war.

Abbas visited Caracas at the end of a South American tour that also took him to Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Paraguay to build support for efforts toward a Palestinian state.

Latin American leaders backed his calls for Israel to halt settlement construction and also to guarantee that future borders are based on lines that existed before Israel captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem in the 1967 war. Netanyahu says such matters must be resolved in negotiations.

Abbas met on Friday night with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has stepped squarely into Middle East politics this week by hosting both the Palestinian leader and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Standing beside Abbas at the presidential palace, Chavez saluted the Palestinians for what he called their “fight against the Yankee empire ... against the genocidal state of Israel, which attacks, which kills, which attempts to exterminate the Palestinian people.”

Abbas thanked the Chavez government for its support and said: “We’re all on the same path.”

During a meeting at the palace, Chavez presented his guest with an olive branch and a gold-plated replica of a sword that once belonged to 19^th-century independence hero Simon Bolivar — Venezuela’s most revered founding father.

“We want peace,” Chavez said, then hugged Abbas. “May this sword never need to be unsheathed.”

Venezuelan and Palestinian delegations signed a series of cooperation agreements including initiatives to increase bilateral trade and establish student exchange programs. Chavez said his government would also open a Venezuelan embassy in the West Bank.

“We are each day more committed to your struggle,” Chavez said, urging Venezuelans to “offer tribute to the thousands of martyrs who have died” during the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The socialist leader also lauded Carlos the Jackal, a convicted terrorist who is serving a life sentence in a French prison for the 1975 murders of two French secret agents and an alleged informant.

Chavez praised Carlos — whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez — as “a soldier of the Palestinian Liberation Organization who represented all of us in the Palestinian struggle.”

Ramirez Sanchez has testified that he led a 1975 attack that killed three people at the OPEC headquarters in Vienna, Austria. He also has been linked to the 1976 hijacking of an Air France jet.

Venezuela’s government has been strengthening ties with Israel’s adversaries while trading verbal barbs with Israeli President Shimon Peres, who predicted last week in Argentina that the people of Venezuela and Iran will soon get rid of their leaders.

Chavez severed ties with Israel in January to protest its military offensive in the Gaza Strip. In April, Palestinian officials opened a diplomatic mission in Venezuela, saying it would be a hub for diplomacy in South America.