以色列的内部动荡（《纽约时报•早晨》中英对照）

The Morning

: Israel’s internal turmoil

《早晨》：以色列的内部动荡

March 15, 2023

By David Leonhardt and Claire Moses

2023年3月15日

作者：戴维•莱昂哈特 和 克莱尔•摩西

Good morning. Why is Israel descending into political turmoil so far into Netanyahu’s career?

早上好。内塔尼亚胡执政至今，以色列为何陷入政治动荡?

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister.

Pool photo by Maya Alleruzzo

以色列总理本杰明·内塔尼亚胡。

摄影:Maya Alleruzzo ‘At fever pitch’

“处于狂热状态”

Political leaders who have already been in office for more than 15 years — which is how long Benjamin Netanyahu has been Israel’s prime minister — do not typically upend their country’s politics. Yet that’s what Netanyahu has done in recent weeks. 已经执政超过15年的政治领导人——也就是本雅明·内塔尼亚胡（Benjamin Netanyahu）担任以色列总理的时间——通常不会颠覆他们国家的政治。然而，这正是内塔尼亚胡最近几周所做的。 His government’s proposal to reduce the power of Israel’s Supreme Court has created what our Opinion colleague Thomas Friedman calls the nation’s “biggest internal clash since its founding.” Hundreds of thousands of Israelis — approaching 5 percent of the population — participated in protests last weekend. Ehud Barak, a former prime minister, has encouraged Israelis to engage in civil disobedience if the proposal becomes law. And many military officers have said they would refuse to report for duty. 他的政府提议减少以色列最高法院的权力，这造成了我们写观点专栏的同事托马斯·弗里德曼所说的国家“自建国以来最大的内部冲突”。上个周末，数十万以色列人——接近该国人口的5%——参加了抗议活动。 以色列前总理埃胡德•巴拉克（Ehud Barak）鼓励，如果该提议成为法律，以色列人将进行公民不服从。 许多军官表示，他们将拒绝报到。 Bret Stephens, another Times Opinion columnist — who has often been sympathetic to Netanyahu’s policies — has criticized the judicial plan as a threat to Israel’s moral standing. “Hyper-personalized, populist rule achieved by gutting institutional checks and balances is how democracies devolve into mobocracies,” Bret wrote. 另一位时报的观点专栏作者布雷特·斯蒂芬斯（Bret Stephens），他曾经常赞同内塔尼亚胡的政策，也批评这项司法计划是对以色列道德地位的威胁。 布雷特写道：“通过破坏制度制衡来实现的高度个性化的民粹主义统治，是民主国家沦为暴民政治的原因。” In today’s newsletter, we’ll explain why the later stages of Netanyahu’s political career are turning out to be more chaotic than anything that came before. 在今天的时事通讯中，我们将解释为什么内塔尼亚胡政治生涯的后期比以往任何时候都更加混乱。 What changed?

什么改变了？

Netanyahu has always been on Israel’s political right, but he was long able to build alliances with the center. The Israeli left, by contrast, has been marginalized and has not led the government since 2001. 内塔尼亚胡一直属于以色列的政治右翼，但他长期以来都能够与中间派建立联盟。相比之下，以色列左翼已经被边缘化，自2001年就从没有领导过政府。 One important cause was the breakdown of peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in the early 2000s. The failure of those talks — including the Palestinian leadership’s walking away from the Camp David negotiations in 2000 — led many Israeli voters to give up on the idea of peace and support conservative parties. Netanyahu often led the coalitions that spanned the center and right. 一个重要原因是本世纪初以色列和巴勒斯坦领导人之间的和平谈判破裂。 这些谈判的失败——包括巴勒斯坦领导人在2000年退出戴维营谈判——导致许多以色列选民放弃了和平的想法，转而支持保守派政党。 内塔尼亚胡经常领导跨越中间和右边的联盟。 But in 2019, while he was prime minister, Netanyahu was indicted on corruption and bribery charges. Many politicians who agree with his Likud party on substantive issues decided that he needed to resign. “Israel’s centrist parties are willing to serve in a coalition with Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud in charge,” Matti Friedman, a journalist who lives in Israel, wrote for The Free Press. “But they will no longer serve under Netanyahu himself: The prime minister, a master of the political maneuver, has simply lied to too many people too many times.” 但在2019年，内塔尼亚胡担任总理期间，他被指控腐败和贿赂。 许多在实质性问题上，与他的利库德集团意见一致的政客认为他需要辞职。 “以色列的中间派政党愿意在内塔尼亚胡的右翼利库德集团掌权的情况下组成联盟，”居住在以色列的记者马蒂·弗里德曼（Matti Friedman）在为《自由新闻报》(The Free Press)撰文时表示， “但他们将不再为内塔尼亚胡本人服务：这位政治手腕娴熟的总理，已经对太多人撒了太多次谎。” This refusal, combined with the continued popularity of the political right, has thrown Israeli politics into turmoil. The country has held five elections since 2019. Likud received the largest share of votes — 23 percent — in the most recent election. Even so, Netanyahu was able to put together a governing coalition only by allying with far-right and religious parties. 这种拒绝，再加上政治右翼的持续流行，使以色列政治陷入混乱。 自2019年以来，该国已经举行了五次选举。 利库德集团在最近的选举中获得了最多的选票——23%。 即便如此，内塔尼亚胡也只能通过与极右翼和宗教政党结盟来组建一个执政联盟。 The current government, as a result, is more radical than the previous governments Netanyahu led. 因此，现任政府比内塔尼亚胡领导的前几届政府更加激进。

Israel’s Supreme Court.

Lior Mizrahi / Getty Images

以色列最高法院。

利奥尔·米兹拉希 / 盖蒂图片社 Why the Supreme Court?

为什么是最高法院？

Israel’s Supreme Court has something in common with the U.S. version: Both are among the most powerful courts in the world. In many other countries, the top court does not overturn major laws and instead tends to make modest, technocratic changes. In Israel and the U.S., the court often has the last word. (In Israel, the underlying reason is the lack of a constitution.) 以色列最高法院与美国最高法院有一些共同之处：两者都属于世界上最有影响力的法院。 在其他许多国家，最高法院不会推翻重大法律，而是倾向于做出适度的、技术官僚式的改变。 但以色列和美国，法院通常有最后的决定权。（在以色列，根本原因是缺乏宪法。） The proposed changes by Netanyahu’s government would strengthen the authority of the legislature, which in Israel is known as the Knesset. It is already more powerful than the U.S. Congress, because there is no independently elected president; a majority of legislators choose the prime minister. If the judicial changes go through, the Knesset would also gain the power to override Supreme Court decisions and would have few checks on its power. 内塔尼亚胡政府提出的改革将加强立法机构的权威，这在以色列被称为“Knesset”。它的权力已经超过了美国国会，因为美国没有独立选举产生的总统；总理由大多数议员选出。如果司法改革通过，以色列议会也将获得推翻最高法院裁决的权力，对其权力几乎没有制约。 Yesterday, the Knesset passed an initial version of some of the changes. Lawmakers will have to vote twice more before the policies becomes law. 昨天，以色列议会通过了一些修改的初步版本。 在这些政策成为法律之前，议员们还必须再进行两次投票。 Some political commentators argue that the changes themselves are reasonable. “What’s at stake here isn’t the death of the nation’s democracy, but straightforward party politics,” Lahav Harkov of The Jerusalem Post wrote. “The discussion is, in fact, about the proper balance between different elements of a democracy.” 一些政治评论人士认为，改革本身是合理的。 《耶路撒冷邮报》（

the Jerusalem Post

）的拉哈夫·哈尔科夫（Lahav Harkov）写道：“这里的利害关系不是国家民主的死亡，而是直接的政党政治。” “事实上，讨论的是民主的不同元素之间的适当平衡。” Many other analysts disagree, arguing that the reforms would allow a prime minister to dismantle democracy, much as Viktor Orban has done in Hungary. “Theoretically, you could end up with a government that decides that elections are going to take place once every 20 years,” our colleague Isabel Kershner said. 许多其他分析人士不同意这种观点，他们认为，改革将允许总理废除民主，就像维克托·欧尔班（Viktor Orban）在匈牙利所做的那样。 我们的同事伊莎贝尔·克什纳说：“从理论上讲，你可能会得到一个决定每20年举行一次选举的政府。” Either way, the changes have inspired intense anger because they would give Netanyahu’s government sweeping power to implement its preferred policies. 无论如何，这些改革都引发了强烈的愤怒，因为它们将赋予内塔尼亚胡政府实施其首选政策的广泛权力。 “Underlying this technical debate about the judiciary is a much broader conflict about what kind of society Israel should be,” Patrick Kingsley, The Times’s Jerusalem bureau chief, told us. “Ultra-Orthodox Jews and settler activists are taking advantage of the fact that they wield unprecedented power in Israeli society and government to try to unravel the influence of the court.” “在这场关于司法的技术性辩论背后，是一场更广泛的冲突，即以色列应该拥有什么样的社会，”时报驻耶路撒冷分社社长帕特里克·金斯利（Patrick Kingsley）告诉我们，“极端正统派犹太人和移民活动家正在利用他们在以色列社会和政府中拥有前所未有的权力这一事实，试图瓦解法院的影响力。” The stakes

赌注

Netanyahu and his far-right allies have different incentives to neutralize the court. 内塔尼亚胡和他的极右翼盟友有不同的动机来中和法院。 For Netanyahu, a court that was subservient to Israeli’s legislature would allow him to end his own corruption trial, which is still taking place. Netanyahu has denied he would do so. 对内塔尼亚胡来说，一个服从于以色列立法机构的法院将允许他结束对自己腐败的审判，这一审判仍在进行中。 内塔尼亚胡否认他会这样做。 For far-right parties, a neutered court would help the Knesset to enact major policy priorities — such as making it easier for settlers to seize land in the West Bank; protecting government subsidies for religious schools; and helping ultra-Orthodox Israelis avoid mandatory military service. 对于极右翼政党，一个中立的法院将有助于以色列议会制定主要的优先政策——比如让移民者更容易在约旦河西岸夺取土地；保护政府对宗教学校的补贴；帮助极端正统派以色列人避免义务兵役。 One reason for the intensity of the debate is the polarization between Israelis who are part of Netanyahu’s coalition and who are outside of it. He has appointed ultranationalist figures to major posts, including Itamar Ben-Gvir, the leader of the far-right Jewish Power party, who threatened Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin weeks before his 1995 assassination and publicly thanked a rabbi who justified Rabin’s murder. Ben-Gvir is now the national security minister. 辩论如此激烈的一个原因是内塔尼亚胡联盟内的以色列人和联盟外以色列人之间的两极分化。他任命了一些极端民族主义者担任要职，包括极右翼犹太权力党（Jewish Power party）领导人伊塔马尔·本-格维尔（Itamar Ben-Gvir）。他曾在1995年拉宾（Yitzhak Rabin）总理遇刺前几周威胁拉宾，并公开感谢一名为谋杀拉宾正名的拉比。本-格维尔现在是国家安全部长。 “Israeli society is at fever pitch,” Patrick said. “以色列社会正处于狂热状态，”帕特里克说。

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow.

谢谢你早上花时间看《纽约时报》。明天见。

Matthew Cullen, Lauren Hard, Lauren Jackson, Brent Lewis, Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

马修·卡伦、劳伦·哈德、劳伦·杰克逊、布伦特·刘易斯、克莱尔·摩西、伊恩·普拉萨德·菲尔布里克、汤姆·赖特-皮尔桑蒂和阿什利·吴为《早晨》杂志撰稿。您可以通过themorning@nytimes.com与团队联系。

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