Israel
以色列
Give Livni a chance
给拉芙妮一个机会
Sep 11th 2008
From The Economist print edition
Israel needs a new leader. Tzipi Livni is the best on offer
以色列需要一个新领导人,拉芙妮是最佳人选
A DANGEROUS uncertainty hovers over the Levant. The Lebanese have a ramshackle government with no one really in charge. An Islamist guerrilla movement, Hizbullah, is a restive partner in the country’s ruling coalition while it runs its own armed statelet near the border with Israel. Syria has lost control of Lebanon but still hankers after its old dominance there; indirect talks with Israel are sputtering nowhere. Egypt, once a force in regional diplomacy, is weighed down by its own worries (see article). The Palestinians remain viciously split between the Islamists of Hamas, who run the Gaza Strip, and secular-minded Fatah, which runs the West Bank. Israel has a lame-duck prime minister, Ehud Olmert, who may soon be formally charged with corruption. The United States, essential for knocking heads together, has a lame-duck president whose quacks for peace have probably come too late.
Levant地区充满了危险的变数。黎巴嫩政府风雨飘摇、群龙无首。真主党在联合政府中频生事端,它在靠近黎以边境的地区有着自己的势力范围。叙利亚已经失去了对黎巴嫩的控制,但依然一心想找回在该地区的旧有支配地位;叙以谈判没有任何成果。埃及这个前区域外交的重要力量,也由于自身麻烦缠身而权重渐小。巴勒斯坦依然分崩离析,掌控加沙地带的哈马斯与统治约旦河西岸的法塔赫两分天下。以色列的跛脚鸭总理奥尔默特可能很快就会因腐败被正式起诉。各方均需美国来斡旋,但其跛脚鸭总统促成中东和解的努力未免来得太晚了。
Nothing good is likely to happen until some of these political uncertainties have been ironed out, a process that will take months. But at least there is one hopeful prospect, albeit one that may not last long: Israel may soon get a better prime minister, its present foreign minister, Tzipi Livni (see article).
如果上述其中一些政治危局未获解决(而这又需要数月的时间),就很难期望有好消息出现。不过至少还有一个念想,尽管它可能不会持续很长时间:以色列或许即将迎来一个更优秀点儿的总理–现任外长拉芙妮。
On September 17th Israel’s ruling party, Kadima, opens the first round of a primary election to pick a leader to replace Mr Olmert. After he-or she-is chosen, the wearisome business of refashioning a ruling coalition may drag on for weeks. If it proves impossible, in view of Israel’s mischievous, ultra-democratic system of extreme proportional representation that gives government-busting powers to small parties, then a general election must take place within three months. If the opinion polls are to be believed and hold firm, Binyamin Netanyahu, whose Likud party still rejects the idea of a genuine state for the Palestinians on the West Bank and in Gaza, could then become prime minister once again. This is a glum prospect, though it is conceivable that Mr Netanyahu would feel obliged, as have other hard men before him, to change his mind about how to make peace with the Palestinians.
9月17日,以色列第一大党前进党将举行党主席选举,寻找奥尔默特的接班人。前进党主席尘埃落定后,组建联合政府的无聊过程可能要拖延数周。如果未能成功组阁,那么按照以色列那个有害的极端单一比例制(小党派据此有能力令联合政府崩溃),大选必须在三个月内举行。如果民调真实可信,利库德集团领导人内塔尼亚胡可能再次当选首相。利库德集团依然反对巴勒斯坦在约旦河西岸和加沙地带建国。可以想见,内塔尼亚胡将会像其它前强硬派领导人一样,不得不就如何达成巴以和平改变自己的想法。但尽管如此,他的当选仍让人沮丧。
Even if Ms Livni gets the job and hangs on to it, she will not perform miracles. But she is tough and now seems to believe firmly that a proper two-state solution, with the Palestinians entrenched in a separate, viable, sovereign, contiguous state, is the sole path to Israel’s survival as a predominantly Jewish country. Within Kadima her leading opponent for the job, Shaul Mofaz, a former army chief of staff and defence minister, gives the impression that keeping the Palestinians down, without necessarily having a real state of their own, is the best way to keep Israel safe. But this is a self-defeating fallacy.
即使拉芙妮女士顺利当选首相并能继续执政,她也不会创造奇迹。但她不屈不挠,看起来她坚信,以色列做为一个犹太国家的唯一生存之路便是让巴勒斯坦建国,让它成为自己一个独立的、自力更生的、主权邻国。在前进党内,前国防部长莫法兹是拉芙妮的主要对手,他的政策留给人的印象是,没必要让巴勒斯坦建国,削弱它才是保证以色列安全的最佳途径。但这是一个难以自圆其说的谬论。
What she would have to do
她该做什么
The outlines of a solution have long been clear: draw a border roughly along the lines that existed before the war of 1967; share Jerusalem as capital of both states; and acknowledge, while agreeing not to implement, a symbolic right of return of Palestinians to the parts of their old homeland now in Israel.
巴以和平的解决框架早已明晰:粗略的沿着1967年战争前的状态划定边界;将耶路撒冷做为共同的首都;承认巴勒斯坦人返回他们(部分)故地(位于以色列)的象征性权利,但保证不实施;
If she became prime minister, Ms Livni would also need to undertake several other fiendishly hard tasks. None of her predecessors since 1967 have managed it, but she would have to stop, once and for all, Jewish building on Palestinian land. She should adjust the security barrier that bites out further chunks of Palestinian land so it runs closer to the 1967 line-and obey Israeli courts when they order this. And she would need to understand that encouraging divisions among the Palestinians-egging on Fatah to bash Hamas-is unlikely to secure long-term peace for Israel. If she wants to bolster a united Palestinian leadership to carry its people towards peace, she could raise the possibility of freeing Marwan Barghouti, potentially the most effective Palestinian leader, as part of a prisoner exchange. In case the Palestinians’ floundering president, Mahmoud Abbas, finally runs out of steam, Mr Barghouti may be the Fatah man to woo Hamas supporters and do a deal.
如果拉芙妮当选首相,她还要面临其它几个重大的挑战。自1967年以来,没有一位以色列首相能够阻止在巴勒斯坦土地上建起犹太建筑,但拉芙妮必须设法一劳永逸的解决这个问题。她应该调整以色列的安全隔离墙,该隔离墙不断蚕食大块的巴勒斯坦土地,离1967年的边界越来越近。如果法院对此下达命令,她应该遵守。她也应该明白,蓄意在巴勒斯坦人中间制造分离(煽动法塔赫攻击哈马斯)不可能为以色列带来长治久安。如果她想支持一位巴勒斯坦联合领导人,让他带领其民众走向和平,她就应该考虑通过战俘交换释放巴尔古提,因为他最有可能成为巴勒斯坦领导人。一旦犹豫不定的阿巴斯失去民众支持,巴尔古提可能就是法塔赫里能够争取到哈马斯支持者的人,若他能主政巴勒斯坦,或许就能同以色列进行交易。
None of this will be easy. It needs the co-operation of both a new American president and a host of difficult Arabs. But Ms Livni has the toughness and the vision to do it. She is thus Israel’s best chance of peace.
上述种种都非易事。它需要与下任美国总统和许多难缠的阿拉伯人合作。但拉芙妮女士有去做的远见和决心,因此她是为以色列带来和平的最佳人选。
译者:dgrkl http://www.ecocn.org/forum/viewthread.php?tid=14003&extra=page%3D1
是不是翻成拉芙妮更好呢?翻译很有文采
译者借鉴了新华网的译法,不过拉芙妮真是个好名字!以后可以不理官方译法了。