Salvos on lifting Israeli arms curb

Soviet, Chinese, and Palestinian leaders criticized the Reagan administration for its decision to lift a two-month embargo on delivery of US war- planes to Israel. They indicated it would undermine peacekeeping efforts in the Middle East and possibly hurt broad US foreign policy interests.

Mr. Reagan decided Monday to lift the ban on the delivery of 16 advanced warplanes to Israel without ruling whether Israel's strike on an Iraqi nuclear plant broke agreements on use of US-made weapons.

In a dispatch from Washington, the Soviet's Tass news agency said the US embargo was a "hypocritical farce" and that no one had taken the original, short-lived, suspension seriously, because Israel had acted with obvious US consent and used US weapons.

The Palestine Liberation Organization said the decision, which offered no punishment or even harsh criticism of the Israeli attacks on the Iraqi nuclear plant and of the bombing of Beirut, in which more than 300 people were killed, threatened the four-week-old cease-fire in Lebanon and encouraged Israeli aggression.

The official Chinese news agency said resumption of the deliveries is an act of appeasement made for Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin's September visit to Washington. It will ultimately cost the US Arab support, said the dispatch from Chinese officials in Washington.