Arens Decries U.S. Role in U.N. Proposal : Mideast: Washington is accused of backing an Arab attack on the right of Soviet Jews to immigrate to Israel.

Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Arens on Thursday criticized the United States for coordinating with Arab states in drafting a U.N. resolution opposing settlement of Soviet Jews in occupied areas.

“I am troubled by the activity of the United States when the Arab countries raise in the U.N. Security Council the issue of immigration from the Soviet Union,” Arens said on Israel Radio in a rare publicized rebuke.

Arens, who indicated U.S.-Israeli relations are at a low point, took the unusual step of summoning U.S. Ambassador William A. Brown on Wednesday night to register a protest.

A U.N. vote on the resolution, which had been scheduled for today, was postponed indefinitely.

At a news conference, Foreign Ministry spokesman Yossi Amihud said Israel objects to the U.S. effort to formulate a resolution because it encourages “the Arab attack on the right of Jews to immigrate to Israel.”

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said Arens’ comments were “a little confusing.”

“We wholeheartedly support Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union and absorption . . . into Israel,” she said. “We have and we will continue to press for steps that facilitate and expedite that emigration, such as direct flights (from Moscow), and Minister Arens is very well aware of this.”

However, Tutwiler explained that Washington draws a distinction between Soviet Jews moving to Israel and their absorption into settlements in the occupied territories.

“The government of Israel is well aware of our concern that Soviet Jews not be encouraged to move into the territories,” she said.

A key paragraph of the working draft of the U.N. resolution, composed by nonaligned and Arab states, claims that such settlements violate international law. That is stronger wording than the U.S. position, which is that settlements are an obstacle to peacemaking.

Israeli officials say there is no policy of settling immigrants in occupied lands and no basis to suggest that such settlements are illegal under Geneva Convention rules that govern the conduct of occupying powers.

A spokesman for the Jewish Agency, which assists immigrants, said that only about 200 Soviet Jews, less than 1% of those immigrating, have chosen to live in the occupied territories in the last year.

Other sections of the draft of the U.N. document state that Palestinian exiles should have the right of return, Palestinian civilians should have “impartial protection” and that any foreign aid that could be used for settlements should be withheld.

The draft grew out of a call in March by the Soviet Union for a debate on the settlement of Soviet Jews in Israeli-occupied territory, which includes the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In the past, the United States has vetoed most anti-Israel resolutions. However, officials said that this time U.N. Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering has been seeking joint agreement on language with the Arabs.