In Occupied Lands, Israel Is Dealt a Wild Card : Mideast: Immigration of Soviet Jews to the occupied territories could well tip the political balance to the right.

ARIEL, Israeli-Occupied West Bank —  Having resided in Israel less than a week, Gregory Katzman, an immigrant from the Soviet Union, was barely ready to give a detailed opinion about Israel’s most divisive question, the future of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

But by choosing as his home Ariel, the largest of West Bank Jewish settlements, Katzman understood that he was automatically becoming a player in the unfolding drama of the land.

“I know that this is the capital of the territories. Some people want to keep the territories, some want to give them away. We will see,” he told a visitor.

Katzman’s choice and those of potentially thousands of other Soviet immigrants will be closely watched not only in the occupied lands but the halls of government in Jerusalem and Washington.

A smattering of newly arrived Soviet Jews are already calling the West Bank and Gaza home. They are attracted by the availability of relatively cheap and ample homes and a warm welcome from eager nationalist settlers. About 70,000 Israelis live among the 1.7-million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

Militant Israeli nationalists view the accelerated immigration of Jews from abroad as a key to ensuring Israel’s control of the occupied lands. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir has predicted that waves of newcomers will eventually offset the vast numerical advantage of Palestinians on the land.

Recently, Shamir told followers in his Likud Party that the Jews who may leave the Soviet Union present Israel with “a momentously historic period.” The immigration “will change everything,” he said.

His government estimated this month that 750,000 Soviet Jews will emigrate during the next six years.

The Soviet influx is spurred by two factors: eased restrictions on emigration of the glasnost era and a decision by the United States, the preferred destination of most Soviet Jews, to limit entry.

Not long ago, Housing Minister David Levy proposed that each settler family adopt a new immigrant and maintain him or her until new housing can be built.

Washington periodically expresses displeasure with Israel’s settlement program. U.S. officials say it complicates American designs for a solution based on getting Israel to give up land in return for peace with its Arab neighbors. Systematic populating of the West Bank and Gaza with new arrivals would probably redouble the outcry.

The Israeli government moves cautiously, worried about upsetting its staunchest ally by embarking on a dramatic settlement program. Because Washington opposes the program, donations from American Jewry cannot be used directly to aid immigrants in the occupied lands, lest the donors lose their tax breaks.

“There are no specific programs for the resettlement of Soviet Jewry in the . . . West Bank,” Yitzhak Peretz, the absorption minister, said in a recent interview. But he added, under a policy in which new residents can choose for themselves where to live, if they want to settle in the West Bank, “we would certainly encourage them.”

Palestinians hoping to establish an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza are already alarmed by the immigration.

“We have no business telling the Soviet Union not to allow Jews to emigrate, but we must make it clear that we object to settling them in the occupied territories,” said Hanna Siniora, editor of the newspaper Al Fajr in Jerusalem.

Four percent of the new arrivals are moving to the settlements, according to statistics from the Jewish Agency, which is responsible for bringing Jews to Israel and, along with the government, provides aid to the arrivals. Jewish Agency policy forbids direct use of its funds for settlement in the occupied lands.

Still, newcomers who choose “direct absorption” by finding their own homes and jobs can go to the settlements and receive help through the government.

“They can go live any place where there is accommodation,” said Danny Topaz, director of the budget department at the Absorption Ministry.

Settlement leaders are enthusiastic about the potential influx and are demanding a share of $3 billion in government-Jewish Agency funding earmarked for housing, training and educational projects during the next three years.

“We can absorb as efficiently as anyone, maybe more so,” said Ron Nachman, the mayor of Ariel, population 8,000. “United States opposition is stupid because it tries to make Israel deny its own policy.”

The arrival of Soviet immigrants has raised fears among dovish Israelis that politics will be further pushed to the hawkish right by the fiercely anti-leftist immigrants. A recent article in the Jerusalem Post noted that leftists are unenthusiastic about helping Soviet Jews because the migrants “either go to America or become Likudniks in Israel.”

Indeed, comments from a few newcomers at Ariel, who had found the settlement through friends or acquaintances, indicate an inclination toward hard-line views.

Katzman, a plasterer in his Soviet hometown near Minsk, recalled that before he arrived, all he had ever heard about Israel was bad.

“Every day, every day, the government of the Soviet Union said Israel was criminal. Occupiers, occupiers, occupiers. That’s all we heard about Israel,” he recalled.

Katzman has yet to experience directly the conflict with the Palestinians, who frequently harass traffic on roads leading to Ariel by throwing stones. He believes that the army should take harsher measures to put down the rebellion.

“Israel has to punish the Arabs more,” he stated flatly.

Michael Klimovitzky, who came from Leningrad and has lived in Ariel only a few weeks, said that he settled in Ariel to “take part in the problems of the country.”

“Some people say that this land is not ours, because the Arab population is bigger,” he remarked in reference to the occupied territories. “Well, we will make the population of Israelis bigger.”