在周四于联合国发表的演讲中，本雅明·内塔尼亚胡以傲慢且挑衅的态度列举了一群他认为是企图摧毁以色列、并推动反犹太阴谋的“恶棍”，并指责以色列在加沙犯下了种族灭绝罪行。他特别提到了哈马斯、伊朗、卡塔尔和土耳其等国家的领导人。然而，内塔尼亚胡在演讲中花了大量时间攻击一个不同寻常的目标——纽约市市长佐赫兰·马姆达尼。
In a boastful and defiant speech to the United Nations on Thursday, Benjamin Netanyahu called out a list of villains he insisted are intent on destroying Israel and promoting an anti-Jewish conspiracy by accusing Israel of committing a genocide in Gaza. He singled out the leaders of Hamas, Iran, Qatar and Turkey, among others. But Netanyahu spent considerable time on the global stage attacking an unusual target: Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York City.
内塔尼亚胡指责马姆达尼宣扬反犹太主义，错误地声称他支持哈马斯，并表示自马姆达尼上任以来，“许多犹太人在纽约不再感到安全”。这位以色列领导人还批评马姆达尼的妻子在2023年10月哈马斯袭击以色列后不久就转发了支持巴勒斯坦事业的社交媒体帖子。总体而言，在这场长达近40分钟的演讲中，内塔尼亚胡用来攻击马姆达尼的时间，远远超过了攻击其他任何政治领导人的时间，甚至超过了攻击以色列传统敌人的时间。
Netanyahu accused Mamdani of promoting antisemitism, falsely claimed that he supports Hamas, and argued that since the mayor took office in January, “many Jews no longer feel safe in New York.” The Israeli leader also criticized Mamdani’s wife for liking social media posts that supported the Palestinian cause soon after the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023. Overall, Netanyahu seems to have devoted more time in his nearly 40-minute speech to singling out Mamdani than any other political leader, including Israel’s traditional enemies.
表面上看，内塔尼亚胡的攻击行为似乎主要是出于对马姆达尼的个人恩怨——马姆达尼在去年的市长竞选中曾承诺，一旦以色列领导人再次访问纽约，就会执行国际刑事法院（ICC）针对内塔尼亚胡发出的战争罪和反人类罪逮捕令。内塔尼亚胡在联合国讲台上说：“马姆达尼先生，你试图阻止我来到这里，你试图让我沉默……但你无法让我沉默，也无法让真相被掩盖。”然而，内塔尼亚胡的动机并不仅仅局限于个人恩怨：这位民主社会主义市长在美国的民主党人士中颇受欢迎，而民主党人对以色列的批评日益加剧。因此，马姆达尼成为了内塔尼亚胡的理想“对手”——尤其是在内塔尼亚胡面临职业生涯中最艰难的连任竞选之际。内塔尼亚胡正在为自己的政治生存而战；他的右翼执政联盟面临着下个月议会选举失利的风险。
On the surface, it might seem that Netanyahu’s attacks were mainly motivated by personal animosity toward Mamdani, who pledged during last year’s mayoral campaign to execute an arrest warrant against the Israeli premier for war crimes and crimes against humanity issued by the international criminal court (ICC) in 2024. “Mr. Mamdani, you tried to stop me from coming here, you tried to silence me,” Netanyahu said from the UN podium, referring to the mayor’s promise to enforce the ICC warrant the next time the Israeli leader visited New York. “You can’t silence me. You can’t silence the truth.” But Netanyahu is not only driven by his personal dislike of Mamdani: the democratic socialist mayor has become popular among Democrats across the US, who are increasingly critical of Israel. And that makes Mamdani a useful foil for the Israeli prime minister, who is in the midst of one of the toughest re-election campaigns of his career. Netanyahu is fighting for his political survival, with his rightwing governing coalition at risk of losing Israel’s parliamentary elections next month.
内塔尼亚胡常被称为以色列政坛的“生存大师”，他多年来一直擅长妖魔化自己的对手，并将以色列民众的注意力引向外部敌人。自2023年10月以来，他持续延长了对加沙的种族灭绝战争以及整个地区的冲突，以此推迟选举，并阻止任何独立调查委员会对其政府在哈马斯袭击事件中的安全失误进行调查。他还试图通过掌权来逃避自己早前的腐败指控：他曾被指控在担任总理期间，通过提供政治庇护来换取富有的支持者的礼物或正面媒体报道。
Netanyahu, who is often described as “the great survivor” of Israeli politics, has decades of experience demonizing his opponents and focusing Israelis on external enemies. Since October 2023, Netanyahu has prolonged Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, and a wider regional war, so he could avoid early elections and block an independent commission into his government’s security failures that led up to the Hamas attack. Netanyahu is also clinging to power to save himself from a years-long corruption trial stemming from one of his earlier stints as premier, where he has been accused of providing political favors to wealthy supporters in exchange for gifts or positive media coverage.
内塔尼亚胡在联合国的演讲并不是他第一次攻击马姆达尼；他的目的主要是为了讨好以色列国内的那些将这位支持巴勒斯坦的年轻穆斯林市长视为“反派”的民众。自今年夏天以来，以色列的利库德党就一直在大肆宣传反对马姆达尼的内容：他们将马姆达尼的照片印在特拉维夫市中心的一块竞选广告牌上。这张广告牌上，马姆达尼与伊朗最高领袖穆罕默德·哈梅内伊、土耳其总统雷杰普·塔伊普·埃尔多安以及黎巴嫩真主党领导人纳伊姆·卡塞姆并排出现在一起。广告牌上写着：“他们希望内塔尼亚胡失败！”广告牌上还印有利库德党的标志——这个政党几十年来一直由内塔尼亚胡主导着。
Netanyahu’s UN speech wasn’t the first time he has targeted Mamdani – largely to curry favor with a domestic Israeli audience that views the young Muslim, pro-Palestinian mayor of New York as a villain. Israel’s Likud party has been whipping up an election frenzy against Mamdani since the summer, when it plastered his photo on a campaign billboard in central Tel Aviv. The poster features Mamdani alongside Iran’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei; Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan; and Naim Qassem, the leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia. “They want Netanyahu to lose,” says the poster, which features the logo of the rightwing Likud party that Netanyahu has dominated for decades. “Don’t let them win.” Earlier this month, Netanyahu continued his attacks lumping Mamdani with Middle East leaders who are the Israeli premier’s usual targets. Netanyahu posted an AI-generated video on his personal X account that showed Mamdani celebrating at the prospect of Netanyahu’s defeat in the upcoming elections. “Erdogan, bro, are you coming to the party of the fall of Netanyahu elections?” an AI version of Mamdani asks in a supposed phone call with the Turkish leader. The fake video also features Khamenei and Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, reveling at the prospect of Netanyahu’s downfall.
本月早些时候，内塔尼亚胡继续攻击马姆达尼，将他与那些常成为以色列总理攻击目标的中东领导人相提并论。他在自己的社交媒体账号上发布了一段由人工智能生成的视频，视频中马姆达尼似乎在庆祝内塔尼亚胡在即将到来的选举中落败。视频中，一个“人工智能生成的马姆达尼”假扮成他的样子，通过电话与埃尔多安对话，问道：“埃尔多安，你会来参加庆祝内塔尼亚胡落败的派对吗？”视频中还出现了哈梅内伊和巴勒斯坦权力机构主席马哈茂德·阿巴斯，他们也在为内塔尼亚胡的失败而欢呼。
But the video goes on to show Netanyahu defeating his political opponents in Israel – forcing Mamdani and the others to cancel their celebration. “They want Netanyahu to fall. Don’t let them win,” a narrator says in Hebrew in the video’s closing message.
然而，视频的后续情节显示内塔尼亚胡最终击败了他在以色列的政治对手，迫使马姆达尼和其他人取消了他们的庆祝活动。视频的结尾部分，一位旁白用希伯来语说道：“他们希望内塔尼亚胡失败……但不要让他们得逞。”
For his part, Mamdani fought back against Netanyahu’s attacks, but he has also tried to keep the focus on international law and the importance of carrying out the ICC’s arrest warrant. Mamdani said the Israeli leader had used his UN speech to “repeat baseless lies meant to sanitize his genocide of Palestinians … Yet no lie can change the fact that he remains the subject of an international criminal court arrest warrant alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity.” In July, Mamdani released a video on X in which he backed away from his campaign pledge to arrest Netanyahu, and acknowledged that New York’s police department does not have the legal authority to carry out the ICC’s arrest warrant. Mamdani called the Israeli premier a “war criminal” and “the architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people”, and he urged the federal government to arrest Netanyahu on his next visit to the US.
就马姆达尼本人而言，他坚决反击了内塔尼亚胡的攻击，同时他也努力强调国际法的重要性以及执行国际刑事法院（ICC）逮捕令的必要性。马姆达尼指出，这位以色列领导人利用在联合国的演讲“反复宣扬毫无根据的谎言，试图为其对巴勒斯坦人的种族灭绝行为辩解”；然而，“任何谎言都无法改变一个事实：内塔尼亚胡仍然是国际刑事法院指控其犯有战争罪和反人类罪的通缉对象”。今年7月，马姆达尼在社交媒体上发布了一段视频，表示自己放弃了此前要求逮捕内塔尼亚胡的承诺，并承认纽约警方没有法律权限来执行国际刑事法院的逮捕令。他称内塔尼亚胡为“战争罪犯”以及“对巴勒斯坦人民实施种族灭绝的罪魁祸首”，并敦促美国政府在内塔尼亚胡下次访问美国时将其逮捕。
But there’s virtually no chance of that happening. Joe Biden and Donald Trump rejected the ICC’s accusations against Netanyahu – in keeping with their unwavering support for Israel and the billions of dollars in US weapons sent by both of their administrations to enable Israel to carry out its genocide in Gaza. Trump has threatened to impose crippling sanctions against the international court to pressure it to revoke the warrant against his friend and ally Netanyahu. In July, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, pledged to lead an American campaign to dismantle the ICC “brick by brick, if necessary”.
不过，这种可能性几乎微乎其微。乔·拜登和唐纳德·特朗普都拒绝接受国际刑事法院对内塔尼亚胡的指控——这完全符合他们一贯支持以色列的政策；两国政府还向以色列提供了数十亿美元的武器，帮助其继续在加沙地带实施种族灭绝行为。特朗普甚至威胁要对国际刑事法院实施严厉制裁，以迫使该法院撤销针对内塔尼亚胡的逮捕令。今年7月，美国国务卿马可·卢比奥表示，如果必要的话，美国将“逐步摧毁”国际刑事法院。
Netanyahu’s arrogant speech to the UN – coupled with the Trump administration’s deep hostility to the ICC and other institutions intended to uphold international law – might reinforce the idea that impunity will always win under a global order imposed by brute force.
内塔尼亚胡在联合国上的傲慢言论，再加上特朗普政府对国际刑事法院及其他维护国际法的机构的强烈敌意，可能会让人们认为：在由武力主导的全球秩序下，犯罪者永远可以逍遥法外。然而，尽管马姆达尼的努力目前尚未取得成功，但他的行动仍为正义的实现带来了一线希望——也许有朝一日，以色列的领导人终将为其战争罪行承担法律责任。
But Mamdani’s effort, even if it has failed so far, offers fleeting hope that justice could prevail – and Israel’s leaders will one day be held to account for their war crimes.
穆罕默德·巴齐（Mohamad Bazzi）是《卫报》美国版的专栏作家，同时担任纽约大学近东研究中心（Center for Near Eastern Studies）的主任以及该校的新闻学教授。
Mohamad Bazzi is a Guardian US columnist. He is also director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies and a journalism professor at New York University