自由派想象中的乌托邦式巴勒斯坦与真实存在的巴勒斯坦，偶尔不得不发生冲突。上周末便是如此：巴勒斯坦总统马赫穆德·阿巴斯在其四年任期已届满20年之后，再次取消了各领土的民主选举。
Ever so occasionally, the utopian Palestine of the liberal imagination and the Palestine that actually exists are forced to come into conflict. One such moment came last weekend when the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, 20 years into his four-year term, once again cancelled democratic elections across the territories.
总统和立法选举原定于11月底举行，现已推迟近一年。对一些国家——包括法国、加拿大和澳大利亚——而言，“巴勒斯坦国”的整个幻想不仅取决于该国拥抱民主，还取决于巴勒斯坦承诺在加沙停火后一年内举行选举。
The presidential and legislative elections were due to be held at the end of November, and they have been pushed back by almost a year. For some countries – including France, Canada and Australia – the whole illusion of the “state of Palestine” rested not only on that state embracing democracy, but on a supposed Palestinian commitment to holding elections within a year of a ceasefire in Gaza.
这些国家坚称，他们相信——是天真？愚蠢？还是一厢情愿？——当阿巴斯说他希望建立一个与以色列和平共处的民主国家时，他是认真的。不幸的是，事实并非如此。阿巴斯在2021年也曾取消选举，如今他在第一道门槛上就跌倒了。
These countries insisted they believed – naively? stupidly? wishfully? – that, when Abbas said he wanted a democratic state that would live in peace with Israel, he meant it. It is rather inconvenient that this wasn’t true. Abbas, who also cancelled elections in 2021, has fallen at the first hurdle.
英国的期望略有不同。它曾要求巴勒斯坦组织（但不一定举行）一次选举，时间在停火生效后一年内（停火于2025年10月10日生效）。巴勒斯坦将新选举日期定为2027年9月11日，或许可以向工党声称自己勉强做到了这一点。但对其他国家来说，敷衍过去就没那么容易了。例如，法国曾建议，选举应在停火后一年内在国际监督下实际举行。
The UK’s expectations were slightly different. It had demanded that the Palestinians organise (but not necessarily hold) an election within a year of a ceasefire taking effect (which it did on Oct 10, 2025). By giving a new election date of Sept 11, 2027, the Palestinians might be able to claim to Labour they have just about done that. But it should have been less easy to fob off the other countries. France, for example, had suggested that elections should actually take place within a year after a ceasefire under international supervision.
回应是什么？周二下午，选举被取消48多个小时后，英国、法国、加拿大和澳大利亚的外长发表了一份最为软弱的声明，谴责这一举动。他们说，他们“对这一决定深感遗憾”，这将让想要投票的巴勒斯坦人“深感失望”。对于违背建国核心承诺的行为，仅发表这样一份软弱无力的声明，难怪巴勒斯坦领导层知道自己可以在西方国家面前耍弄手腕。
What has been the response? On Tuesday afternoon, more than 48 hours after the elections were called off, the foreign ministers of the UK, France, Canada, and Australia issued the weakest of statements denouncing the move. They said they “deeply regret” the decision and it would be “deeply disappointing” to the Palestinians who wanted to vote. A feeble statement for breaking a core pledge for their statehood, it is little wonder the Palestinian leadership knows it can run rings around Western powers.
那么，这些国家要意识到什么才能明白，它们所要求的两国方案——两个和平共处的民主国家——是个空想？尽管我们都希望如此——天哪，我多么希望这能成为现实——但这似乎从来不是巴勒斯坦领导层想要的。
And what needs to happen for these nations to realise that the two-state solution they demand – of two democracies that live next to each other in peace – is a pipe dream? That as much as we all wish it – and goodness, I wish it could be true – that is not what the Palestinian leadership has ever seemed to want.
巴勒斯坦领导层似乎并不相信两国方案，这一点许多以色列人在奥斯陆和平进程（本可让巴勒斯坦拥有一个国家）期间得以认识到，当时哈马斯在巴勒斯坦当局的默许下，发起了一波被称为第二次起义的自杀式爆炸袭击。对于那些仍相信和平的以色列梦想家来说，10月7日将他们的希望葬入了地下。
That the Palestinian leadership doesn’t appear to believe in a two-state solution is something many in Israel learned when, in response to the Oslo peace process which would have given them a state, Hamas, with the acquiescence of the Palestinian Authority, began a wave of suicide bombings known as the Second Intifada. For those dreamers in Israel who still believed in peace, October 7 buried their hopes in the ground.
阿巴斯声称取消选举是因为约旦河西岸和加沙地带的局势不稳定，但这一局势不太可能在一年内得到解决。我们只能认为，他再次取消选举是因为他知道自己会输。他所属的法塔赫执政党内部的对手们，对这位90岁高龄领导人的统治已感到厌倦，一直在试图为总统选举和立法选举组建更广泛的联盟。
Abbas claimed he was cancelling the elections because of the instability in the West Bank and Gaza, but that is unlikely to be fixed within the year. We must surely assume he has once again cancelled these elections because he knows he would lose. Rivals within his own Fatah ruling party, sick of the 90-year-old man’s rule, have been trying to create broader coalitions for both the presidential and legislative elections.
但另一个将参加选举的政党是哈马斯，尽管所有梦想和平巴勒斯坦的西方国家坚持认为恐怖组织不能掌权。阿巴斯的前法塔赫竞争对手穆罕默德·达赫兰曾在谈判中试图与哈马斯及另一恐怖组织巴勒斯坦伊斯兰圣战组织建立联盟。达赫兰指责取消选举是“对民主的攻击”。
But another of the parties due to take part in the elections is Hamas, even though all the Western nations dreaming of a peaceful Palestine insist the terror group cannot be in control. Abbas’s former Fatah rival Mohammed Dahlan was in talks to create a coalition with Hamas and fellow terrorists Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Dahlan has attacked the cancellation of the elections as an “attack on democracy”.
阿巴斯本人也可能被取代。总统职位上最受欢迎的候选人是马尔万·巴尔古蒂，他在被定罪谋杀五人（在第二次起义期间，作为阿克萨烈士旅的联合创始人）后被关押在以色列监狱。尽管有公关推动将巴尔古蒂塑造成巴勒斯坦的曼德拉，但可以肯定的是，他在巴勒斯坦受到喜爱是因为他的暴力行为，而不是相反。
Abbas himself was likely to be replaced. The most overwhelmingly popular candidate for president is Marwan Barghouti, who is in Israeli prison after being convicted of the murder of five people during the Second Intifada as the co-founder of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. As much as there has been a PR push for Barghouti to paint him as the Palestinian Mandela, the suspicion must surely be that he is loved in Palestine because of his violence not his lack of it.
几天前，另一位法塔赫官员、负责该组织在黎巴嫩活动的巴塞尔·阿布·沙哈布直言不讳地谈到了“两国方案”的陷阱。他威胁将发动更多越过以色列的行动，据报道他说：“以色列明白它为何不愿给我们一个国家：它知道未来可能发生什么……建立一个巴勒斯坦国将意味着以色列实体的消失和全球犹太复国主义的终结。”也许巴勒斯坦确实有和平的声音，但只要西方国家继续奖赏腐败政客和恐怖分子，这些声音就无法浮现。
A few days ago, another Fatah official, Basel Abu Shahab, who runs the group’s movements in Lebanon, was forthright about the two-state solution “trap”. Threatening more attempts to overrun Israel, he was reported to have said: “Israel understands why it does not want to give us a state: it knows what the future could hold ... the establishment of a Palestinian state would mean the disappearance of the Israeli entity and the end of global Zionism.”Perhaps there are voices for peace in Palestine but they cannot emerge when Western nations continue to reward corrupt politicians and terrorists.
如果我们的国家能够一次承认巴勒斯坦领导层的真实面目，那就好了。而在选举站指出这一点代价太高，这不仅表明巴勒斯坦人本身在挑战民主，也表明这一问题已经破坏了我们自身的选举进程。
It would be good if, just once, our country would acknowledge what the Palestinian leadership actually is. That pointing this out would be too costly at the electoral booth shows not just how democracy itself is challenged by the Palestinians, but how this issue has damaged our own electoral processes.