THE SUMMIT AT GENEVA : Peres Urges Accord on Soviet Jews Who Want to Emigrate

Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres made a pre-Geneva summit appeal Sunday for President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev to agree on free emigration of Soviet Jews.

He emphasized his plea by making it during his weekly Cabinet meeting after taking the unusual step of opening the meeting to reporters.

“We call upon the two leaders--U.S. President Reagan and Soviet leader Gorbachev--to devote to this issue the place it deserves, as a unique issue transcending the rest of the problems on the agenda for discussions between the two superpowers,” Peres said.

He said Israel has seen “several signs” that Moscow would be ready after the summit to discuss the Soviet Jewry issue in the framework of “the unification of families,” which is the only official basis the Soviets recognize for emigration.

‘Indications, Not Assurances’

However, he stressed, “these are indications, not assurances. I do not want to create the impression that there is agreement on the part of the U.S.S.R. to one thing or another.” Israeli officials claim that about 400,000 of the Soviet Union’s 2 million Jews want to emigrate. Only about 900 have been allowed to leave so far this year, compared with the record 51,000 who emigrated in 1979.

The Soviet Jewish community is the third largest in the world, ranking only behind those in the United States and Israel.

There have been widespread reports leading up to the two-day summit, which begins Tuesday, that the Soviets would open the gates to Jewish emigration. The move would be part of a Kremlin plan to eventually re-establish relations with Israel and thus expand Soviet influence in the Middle East, according to these reports.

The Israeli press has spoken of plans for an airlift of as many as 20,000 Soviet Jews to Israel, and emigration officials here said last month that they have contingency plans to absorb as many as 50,000 Soviet Jews if Moscow opens the gates.

Mass Exodus Minimized

However, senior government sources in Jerusalem have consistently minimized the possibility of a sudden exodus. The best Israel can realistically hope for is that during the next year, and within the framework of improved superpower relations, the Soviets might slowly allow Jewish emigration to increase from the present average rate of about 100 a month to 1,000 a month, one Peres aide said.

Israeli activists in the cause of Soviet Jewry speculated that Peres’ unusual appeal was intended at least in part to defuse criticism by his political opponents that he has taken too soft a line on the issue.

“I think, frankly, he has taken up the whole issue for domestic reasons,” one longtime activist said.

Alexander Shipov, a representative of Jerusalem’s Soviet Jewry Center, said Sunday that Moscow so far shows no sign of easing restrictions on emigration. He criticized Peres’ 900-word statement as doing no more than helping the Soviets with their pre-summit propaganda offensive.

Use of ‘Quiet Diplomacy’

Peres said U.S. and Soviet officials have urged that Israel use “quiet diplomacy” to pursue its campaign on behalf of Soviet Jews.

“We do not propose rejecting one means at the expense of another,” he said. “By that I mean that we do not propose to conceal this struggle or obviate its public dimensions, yet we are also ready to pursue the struggle via quiet diplomacy. I see no contradiction between the two.”

Peres also reiterated Israel’s offer to work with Moscow to arrange direct flights for Soviet Jewish emigrants to Israel as a counter to the so-called “dropout” phenomenon. Given visas to go to Israel, about two-thirds of Soviet Jewish emigres in recent years have actually “dropped out” at their first way station, in Vienna, and have gone instead to the United States or some other Western country.

Israeli officials say that in both formal and informal contacts, their Soviet counterparts have said the high dropout rate is one reason they cut back on Jewish emigration. While Moscow can accept the desire of Soviet Jews to be reunified with their peers in Israel, it is ideologically embarrassing for the Kremlin when the emigres flock to the capitalist West, according to this theory.

Identical to Soviet View

Peres stressed Sunday: “I must say that on this matter our position is identical with that of the Soviet Union: We, too, are interested in putting an end to this (dropout) phenomenon, and we, too, are interested in having a Jew who receives a visa to go to Israel actually go to Israel.”

Other experts contend that the dropout rate has little, if anything, to do with the Soviet view of Jewish emigration. In fact, during the peak emigration years of the late 1970s, Soviet officials used the dropout phenomenon to defend their policy against criticism by their Arab allies.

The Arabs objected that Soviet Jewish emigration only helped swell the ranks of the Israeli army opposing them. Moscow countered that it made little difference since most of the emigres did not go to Israel anyway.