Palestine, Israel and the UN
巴以冲突与联合国
Nerves are jangling again
神经再度绷紧
Will Israeli and Palestinian leaders let a renewal of violence in Gaza get out of control and make diplomacy even harder to revive?
加沙暴力冲突再起，巴以双方的领导人会放任局势失控么？巴以外交是否会更加难以恢复？
A SUDDEN frightening surge in violence in Gaza and adjacent bits of Israel, along with the prospect of Israel’s humiliation at the hands of the Palestinians at the UN, is threatening to upset the calm that Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, had hoped to vaunt in the run-up to Israel’s general election on January 22nd. If Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader who runs the West Bank, the main chunk of a would-be Palestinian state, keeps his promise to go ahead and win enhanced observer status at the UN General Assembly on November 29th, Mr Netanyahu’s government may be tempted to take punitive measures that might even lead to Mr Abbas’s downfall. And if the latest bout of violence between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza, which is ruled by the Islamists of Hamas, gets out of hand, Egypt’s Islamist government could threaten to scrap the peace treaty with Israel. As turmoil rattles the wider region, none of this is likely to benefit anyone but warmongers.
陡然间，可怕的暴力冲突在加沙地带和临近的以色列边境地区激增，而巴勒斯坦人在联合国的种种举动也可能令以色列蒙羞。在此之前，以色列总理本雅明·内塔尼亚胡还希望在1月22日大选的准备阶段吹嘘巴以双方的平静态势，但平静恐将被颠覆。作为掌控约旦河西岸的巴勒斯坦领袖、未来巴勒斯坦国的首脑，如果马哈茂德·阿巴斯坚守承诺并在11月29日的联合国大会上为巴勒斯坦赢得联合国观察员国身份的话，内塔尼亚胡政府就可能因事件的刺激而采取惩罚性措施，甚至会引发阿巴斯政权的垮台。而且，对于受哈马斯的伊斯兰主义者管辖的加沙地带，如果近来巴以在该地区一连串的暴力冲突失控的话，那么同属伊斯兰世界的埃及政府就可能威胁要废除与以色列之间的和平条约。随着骚乱袭扰的区域日渐扩大，除了好战分子，没有任何一方将从中获益。
The temperature rose earlier this month when a rocket fired from Gaza, probably by a Palestinian group that is a lot wilder than Hamas, which has generally abided by an informal ceasefire since 2009, hit an Israeli jeep across the border, wounding four soldiers. A retaliatory Israeli air raid killed four Palestinians at a funeral. More Palestinian rockets were fired, some by Hamas itself. Then, on November 14th, Ahmad Jabari, Hamas’s military commander, was killed in an Israeli air strike, prompting a still more vigorous Hamas response. The next day, in an even more dangerous escalation, a rocket killed three Israeli civilians in a town between Gaza and Tel Aviv, Israel’s biggest city.
本月早些时候，一枚从加沙发射的反坦克导弹击中了一辆边境地区的以色列吉普车，导致4名士兵受伤，局势由此升温。而由于哈马斯自09年以来大体上遵循着一项非正式停火协议，导弹可能是由一个远比哈马斯激进的伊斯兰组织发射的。作为报复，以色列发动空袭，造成一场葬礼上的4名巴勒斯坦人死亡。巴方则以更多的火箭弹回应，哈马斯也参与其中。11月14号，哈马斯武装的最高领导人阿哈默德·贾巴里在以色列的空袭中丧生，引发了哈马斯更为猛烈的回击。15号，事态向更加危险的方向恶化，一枚火箭弹击中了加沙和特拉维夫（以色列最大城市）间的一个城镇，三位以色列平民遇难。
Though hundreds of rockets have been fired at Israel from Gaza in the past year, most of them have been inaccurate home-made contraptions; not a single Israeli had previously been killed by one this year (and about a score since 2004), so the latest Israeli fatalities may prompt Mr Netanyahu to retaliate more fiercely still. As The Economist went to press, there were the usual futile worldwide calls for restraint.
尽管在过去的一年中，有数以百计的火箭弹从加沙地带射向以色列，但其中绝大多数是自制的武器装置，精度不高，更没有哪一个以色列人因火箭弹袭击身亡（上次以色列人中弹致死是在2004年）。所以，近来的死伤事件可能会推动内塔尼亚胡采取更为猛烈的报复行动。本刊付印之时，国际社会同以往一样，毫无意义地呼吁巴以双方克制。
So the atmosphere at the UN, in the run-up to the Palestinian vote, is likely to be even steamier. Israeli ministers have been threatening to pull the financial plug on the Palestinian Authority (PA), the body that all sides agreed upon in 1994 to manage Palestinian affairs, if Mr Abbas wins an enhanced status (though not full membership) for Palestine at the UN. But Palestinian leaders say that, if Mr Abbas backs off at the last minute as he did before, the PA will collapse for lack of political progress, albeit of a symbolic kind. He sorely needs a moral and diplomatic victory. “No longer will Palestine be an occupied territory, but an occupied state,” says Muhammad al-Shtayyeh, a confidant of the PA president.
而在联合国，巴勒斯坦成为观察员国[1]的投票正处于准备阶段。因加沙的局势，联合国的气氛也可能会更加焦灼。以色列官员威胁说，如果阿巴斯为巴勒斯坦赢得了联合国观察员国席位（尽管不是完全的会员国），以色列就将终止对巴勒斯坦民族解放运动的财政支持[2]，而1994年各方一致同意由巴解组织来管理巴勒斯坦事务。但巴方领导人表示，如果阿巴斯同之前那样放弃努力的话，那么尽管巴解组织具有某种象征性的意义，也会因在政治上举足不前而垮台。阿巴斯强烈地需要一场精神上和外交上的胜利。“不久之后，巴勒斯坦就不再一个地区，而是一个国家”，阿巴斯的心腹官员穆罕穆德·阿尔什塔耶说道。
For his part, Mr Netanyahu worries that, if the Palestinian bid succeeds, rivals at home will accuse him of losing his diplomatic touch as well as letting violence in Gaza spiral. Israel has already surrendered its long-standing friendship with Turkey, the sole big Muslim country with which it has amiable relations. Barack Obama, back in the White House, is a lot less warm to him than the losing candidate, Mitt Romney, would have been. With Islamists gaining ground in a hostile neighbourhood and many countries once against chastising Israel over Gaza, Israel may start to feel lonelier again. Mr Netanyahu, who seemed electorally impregnable, may suddenly look vulnerable.
对于以方来说，内塔尼亚胡担忧如果巴勒斯坦人赢得联大投票的话，国内的政党竞争者就会指责他不光任由加沙的暴力事件恶化，同时也丧失了自己的外交手腕。以色列已经放弃了与土耳其的长期友好伙伴关系，而土耳其也是唯一一个与以色列关系良好的穆斯林大国。远在白宫的奥巴马对内塔尼亚胡的态度远比竞选失败的罗姆尼要冷淡得多。随着伊斯兰的敌对势力在周边逐渐积聚，许多国家就加沙局势对以方表示谴责，以色列或许会感到更加孤立无援。一度在选举上无可战胜的内塔尼亚胡可能一下子变得脆弱不堪。
Israel’s finance minister, Yuval Steinitz, has threatened—if the UN bid goes ahead—not just to stop transferring the tax revenues that make up almost half the PA budget but to stop collecting them altogether. Yet Israeli army commanders shudder at the chaos that might ensue if the PA’s 50,000 security people were unable to put food on the table. Indeed, Israel has been so worried by the PA’s budget crisis that in the past three months it has advanced $200m to the PA and issued Palestinians in the West Bank with several thousand more permits to work in Israel. “It’s in Israel’s interest to preserve the PA,” says an officer, examining various contingencies.
以色列财政部长尤瓦尔·斯坦尼茨威胁说，如果联合国坚持进行表决的话，以方不仅将停止向巴勒斯坦转付几乎占到巴解组织一半预算的税收收入，还会停止征收全部巴方税款。而如果巴解组织的50000名安全人员无法发放食物，骚乱就可能接踵而至，这令以色列的军事指挥官一想到就不寒而栗。实际上，以方非常担忧巴解组织的预算危机，以致于在过去的三个月里，以方已经向巴解组织预支了2亿美元，并为巴勒斯坦人在约旦河西岸的以色列境内额外提供了数千个工作岗位。“保全巴解组织符合以色列的利益”，在仔细研究了各种可能的突发事件后，一名以方官员这样说道。
Not all Israelis agree. Avigdor Lieberman, who leads a far-right party in the ruling coalition as Mr Netanyahu’s foreign minister, has repeatedly called for the PA to be dissolved. Since Mr Liebermann’s party agreed last month to fight the election in an alliance with Mr Netanyahu’s Likud party, his voice may carry more weight than before. Other hawkish Israelis, reverting to the old slogan of “Jordan is Palestine”, have hailed influential Jordanians who recently declared that the notion of a two-state solution (Israel and Palestine existing side by side in peace) is dead, and that Jordan should take what is left of the West Bank back under its control.
并不是所有以色列人都认同这些。在执政联盟中领导极右翼政党，现任内塔尼亚胡政府外长的阿维格多·利伯曼就反复呼吁解散巴解组织。自上月利伯曼所在政党与内塔尼亚胡的利库德集团达成协议组成竞选联盟后，利伯曼的言论可能会比之前更有分量。其它鹰派的以色列人重提“约旦就是巴勒斯坦归宿”的口号[3]。在该地区颇具影响力的约旦人最近刚刚宣布巴以两国和平共存的方案破产，以色列的鹰派为之高呼，并认为约旦应当将约旦河西岸的烂摊子重新收归掌控之中。
Mr Abbas needs whatever scraps of political credit he can get. The vitriol that Israelis have heaped on him as he heralds his UN bid has helped shore him up a bit, only days after he was denounced as a traitor by many of his fellow Palestinians for appearing on Israeli television to cede the supposedly sacred right of Palestinian refugees to return to their old homes within the internationally recognised borders of Israel, in his case the Galilee town of Safed.
阿巴斯需要把握他所能把握的每一分政治声誉。随着他宣布请求联合国赋予观察员国身份后，以色列人对他进行了尖刻的抨击，或多或少地加强了阿巴斯的执政地位，但仅仅数日之后，他又被自己的巴勒斯坦同胞们称为叛徒，因为他在以色列的一档电视节目上放弃了巴勒斯坦难民通过国际承认的以色列边界返回故乡的权利——这本是巴勒斯坦人的神圣权利。对阿巴斯来说，他自己便无法回到在加利利地区采法特镇的故乡。
Mr Abbas also badly needs international support to help him re-establish his authority over the Palestinian territories, including Gaza. Visits to that beleaguered coastal strip by the moneyed emir of Qatar, by Bahraini princes and Egyptian ministers have all bolstered the claim of Gaza—and of Hamas—to be Palestine’s new centre of gravity. Hamas may also be reviving its ambitions in the West Bank. PA and Israeli officials both say it is rebuilding its base there, five years after it was clobbered for taking over Gaza.
阿巴斯同样迫切地需要国际社会的支持，以帮助其重建在加沙乃至巴勒斯坦境内的权威。卡塔尔富有的埃米尔统治者、巴林王子、埃及部长都出访了重重包围下的沿海地带，这些都巩固了加沙、哈马斯作为巴勒斯坦新重心的地位。哈马斯也许还会恢复其对约旦河西岸的野心。五年前，巴以双方为接管加沙地带大打出手，眼下，巴解组织和以色列都表示正在重建其在约旦河西岸的基地。
That, perhaps, is another reason for Mr Netanyahu to want to cut Hamas down to size over the rockets. But by boosting sympathy for the recalcitrant Islamists, he may also be doing down the most peace-minded of Palestinians, Mr Abbas.
这或许是内塔尼亚胡想借火箭弹袭击事件一挫哈马斯锐气的原因。不过这样一来，他不仅激起了国际社会对顽固的伊斯兰人民的同情，同时可能也使得巴勒斯坦最具和平态度的阿巴斯在国内的领导江河日下。
经济学家
2012-11-20
经济学家
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