上周末，我的X（前身为推特）信息流中出现了一段令人发指的、长达一分钟的视频。视频中，极具辨识度的演员兼剧作家华莱士·肖恩（Wallace Shawn）——他最为人熟知的角色是1987年经典电影《公主新娘》中的维齐尼（Vizzini）——发表了一番充满仇恨的狂言，这与他慈祥的老年人外表和甜美的语调形成了反差。他说，肖恩对以色列和加沙局势的分析是对真相的道德颠倒。
This past weekend, a deplorable minute-long video appeared on my X feed. In it, the instantly recognizable actor and playwright Wallace Shawn, most famous for his role as Vizzini in the classic 1987 film The Princess Bride, delivers a hateful rant belied by his grandfatherly demeanor and dulcet tones. He says, Shawn’s analysis of the situation in Israel and Gaza is a moral inversion of the truth.
这场冲突中唯一犯下灭绝种族意图罪行的政党是哈马斯。正是哈马斯成员记录了他们在2023年10月7日对以色列的野蛮暴行，他们挨家挨户屠杀犹太平民，其残忍程度极其让人联想起八十年前纳粹的行径。正是哈马斯对犹太人鲜血的贪婪渴望，才仅仅被武力所阻止。也正是哈马斯，在吹嘘谋杀无辜平民——包括巴勒斯坦人和以色列人。
The only party in this conflict to have committed an act of genocidal intent was Hamas. It was Hamas whose members recorded their savage rampage into Israel on October 7, 2023, their house-to-house massacring of Jewish civilians so gruesomely evoking the behavior of the Nazis eight decades earlier. It was Hamas whose insatiable lust for Jewish blood was blocked only by force of arms. And it’s Hamas that boasts about the murder of innocent people—Palestinian and Israeli.
这段肖恩的视频出自他2025年接受播客主持人凯蒂·哈尔珀（Katie Halper）的采访，在指责以色列犯下“种族灭绝”罪行的言论达到顶峰之际，该视频再次浮出水面。众议员罗·康纳（Ro Khanna）——一位潜在的民主党总统候选人、来自佛蒙特州的参议员伯尼·桑德斯（Bernie Sanders）以及美国年轻民主党人（Young Democrats of America），只是左翼阵营中指责以色列犯下“罪中之罪”的部分声音。
The Shawn video, which comes from a 2025 interview with the podcaster Katie Halper, resurfaced at a time when rhetoric accusing Israel of “genocide” is at a peak. Representative Ro Khanna, a likely Democratic presidential candidate; Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont; and the Young Democrats of America are just some of the voices on the left that have accused Israel of “the crime of crimes.”
这种毫无根据的指控突然大行其道，以及如此多的人轻率地抛出这一指控，凸显出自2023年哈马斯发动袭击以来，进步派已被激进化的程度。
The sudden prominence of this wholly unfounded allegation, and the casual way in which so many people are hurling it, underscores the degree to which progressives have been radicalized since the 2023 Hamas attack.
詹姆斯·洛夫勒：这种破坏美国政治稳定的仇恨情绪……肖恩长期以来一直是“犹太和平之声”（Jewish Voice for Peace）组织的成员。该组织属于反犹太复国主义阵营，他们将2007年10月以及此前几十年的所有暴力事件都归咎于“以色列的种族隔离政策与占领行为”，以及“美国对这种压迫行为的默许”。越来越多的名人（其中不乏犹太人）也表达了类似的观点。
James Loeffler: The hatred that broke American politics Shawn is a longtime member of Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist organization that attributes “all” of the violence of October 7 and in the preceding decades to “Israeli apartheid and occupation—and United States complicity in that oppression.”A growing number of celebrities, several of them Jewish, have expressed similar ideas. The reemergence of Shawn’s video happened to coincide with the publication of a GQ interview with the actor Adam Brody, who plays a rabbi on the Netflix series Nobody Wants This, the third season of which is coming out next month. Brody, who has been canvassing for Democratic candidates in the run-up to the midterm elections, was asked about Gaza.
肖恩的视频再次被广泛传播，恰逢《GQ》杂志刊登了对演员亚当·布罗迪（Adam Brody）的采访；布罗迪在Netflix剧集《Nobody Wants This》中饰演一位拉比，该剧的第三季将于下个月上映。在本次中期选举前夕，布罗迪一直在为民主党候选人进行宣传活动。当被问及加沙问题时，他回答道：“我认为那是一场种族灭绝。”
“Put me down as thinking it’s a genocide,” he answered, as if he were ordering a cheeseburger. (He also said that, although he hadn’t previously spoken publicly about the issue, “I have spoken a lot about it privately.”) The willingness to declare the war in Gaza a genocide has become a litmus test on the left and is likely to play a significant factor in the 2028 Democratic presidential primary.
他的态度显得非常随意（就像在点一份芝士汉堡一样）。事实上，虽然他此前从未公开谈论过这个问题，但他私下里确实多次表达过类似的观点。如今，是否愿意将加沙战争定性为“种族灭绝”，已成为检验左翼立场的重要标准；这一观点很可能会在2028年的民主党总统初选中起到关键作用。这种言论的真正目的，并不是为了揭示这场冲突的真相，而是为了加剧长期以来试图剥夺以色列国家合法性的运动。
The purpose of the claim is not to establish the facts about an undoubtedly horrific conflict but to increase the stakes in a decades-long effort to delegitimize the Jewish state. Israel’s actions in Gaza lack dolus specialis—the legal term for “specific intent,” which, according to a precedent set by the international tribunal that investigated the Rwandan genocide, means that the perpetrator acted “to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.”Whatever the extreme rhetoric of some Israeli political leaders, Israel has not attempted to use its abundant military superiority to exterminate the Palestinian people.
根据国际法庭在卢旺达种族灭绝案中确立的法律标准，“故意杀人”（即“特定意图”）是指犯罪者“企图彻底或部分消灭某个民族、种族或宗教群体”。尽管一些以色列政治领导人的言辞极其极端，但以色列从未试图利用其压倒性的军事优势来消灭巴勒斯坦人民。
If it were bent on doing so, it would not have sent ground troops into Gaza and incurred hundreds of fatalities; nor would it have worked with the World Health Organization to vaccinate Palestinian children against polio after an outbreak. Some critics of the Jewish state have been accusing it of genocide since its founding, in 1948; others began making the charge only days into its military response to the Hamas attack—as if nothing the Israelis do short of surrendering their country is permissible.
如果它一心想要这样做，就不会派遣地面部队进入加沙并导致数百人死亡；在脊髓灰质炎疫情爆发后，它也不会与世界卫生组织合作，为巴勒斯坦儿童接种疫苗。自这个犹太国家于1948年建国以来，其某些批评者就一直指责其实施种族灭绝；另有一些人则在对哈马斯袭击作出军事回应仅几天后就开始指责——就好像除了放弃国家之外，以色列人做什么都是不被允许的。
Early in the interview, Halper refers to Shawn—son of the legendary New Yorker editor William Shawn—as a “recovering liberal,” a term usually used to denote an older conservative looking wistfully on their younger, left-wing past. But Shawn, who accepts the label, places his opposition to Israel in a broader rejection of liberalism—the very tradition that has allowed Jews to achieve so much in America.
在访谈的前半部分，哈珀将肖恩——传奇的《纽约客》主编威廉·肖恩的儿子——称为“一个正在戒除的自由主义者”，这个词通常用来指代那些带着怀念目光回顾自己年轻时左翼过去的年长保守派。但接受这一标签的肖恩，将他对以色列的反对融入了对自由主义的更广泛拒绝之中——正是这一传统，让犹太人在美国取得了如此巨大的成就。
Until the age of 40, Shawn was a “fairly typical American liberal centrist,” he tells Halper, according to a transcript. “Basically, I believed in the good intentions of Americans, and I believed in the American democratic constitutional system, and I thought many of the Democrats were good people.”Shawn’s views began to change, however, once he realized that “the United States tried to suppress movements for greater liberty in other countries in the world, the goal of that was to benefit the privileged class of my own country, and I was a member of that class. So I actually turned very much against myself and people like me, and I certainly went through a period of extreme nausea and self-hate.”Shawn’s political epiphany occurred during the early years of the Reagan administration, and his views about U.S. iniquity were solidified by his time living in Central America. “I loved being in Nicaragua under the Sandinistas,” Shawn said in a 1991 interview with the Los Angeles Times of the Soviet-backed Marxist-Leninists then running that country. “I personally felt a deep contentment there based on the feeling that maybe things could be done better.”The Sandinistas were peacefully ousted in a democratic election but returned to power in 2007 under the leadership of Daniel Ortega, who canceled this year’s election and has banned the opposition from participating in future ones. If Shawn has criticized Ortega for these genuinely tyrannical actions, there is no public record of it.
根据记录，肖恩在40岁之前一直是一个“典型的美国自由派中间派人士”：他相信美国人的善良本性，也认同美国的民主宪法制度，并认为许多民主党人是好人。然而，当他意识到“美国试图压制世界上其他国家的自由运动——而这些行为的真正目的只是为了维护本国特权阶层的利益”时，他的观点开始发生变化。他因此对自己以及与自己类似的人产生了强烈的反感，甚至经历了极度痛苦和自我厌恶的情绪。
David Frum: Anti-Semitism is becoming mainstream Part of what’s so chilling about Halper’s interview with Shawn is that a man of such refined aesthetic tastes and with such a humane demeanor, as exemplified in his critically acclaimed 1981 picture, My Dinner With Andre, could embrace such brutal, uncompromising politics. Exquisitely nuanced in conveying human motivations and emotions in his performances, Shawn is Manichaean and maximalist in his politics.
肖恩的政治觉醒发生在里根政府执政初期；他在中美洲的生活经历进一步巩固了他对美国不公正行为的看法。他在1991年接受《洛杉矶时报》采访时说：“我很喜欢在桑地诺主义者的统治下生活于尼加拉瓜；当时该国由苏联支持的马克思主义者掌权，我个人感到非常满足，因为我觉得那里的情况本可以变得更好。”桑地诺主义者最终通过民主选举被赶下台，但在2007年在丹尼尔·奥尔特加的领导下重新掌权。
“If you don’t see that it’s evil to do those things to other human beings, then you’re in a different universe from me,” he said of Israeli actions in Gaza, according to the transcript of the Halper interview.
奥尔特加取消了当年的选举，并禁止反对派参与未来的选举。尽管肖恩可能曾批评过奥尔特加的专制行为，但至今没有任何公开记录表明他这样做过。大卫·弗鲁姆：反犹太主义正在走向主流哈尔珀对肖恩的采访之所以令人不寒而栗，部分原因在于：一个拥有如此精致审美品味、并展现出如此人道主义风度的人——这在其广受好评的1981年作品《我和安德烈晚餐》中得到了体现——竟然能拥抱如此残酷、不妥协的政治立场。
“I don’t know how to communicate with you.”There is nothing defensible motivating Israelis; they are driven by an infernal delight in “killing the innocent” and “bombing hospitals.”
肖恩在表演中极其细腻地传达人类的动机与情感，在政治上却是二元论者和极端主义者。“如果你看不出对其他人类做那些事是邪恶的，那你就处在一个与我完全不同的宇宙里，”根据哈尔珀采访的记录，他谈到以色列在加沙的行动时说道，“我不知道如何与你沟通。” 没有任何正当理由能为以色列人的动机辩护；他们是出于一种地狱般的快感在“杀害无辜者”和“轰炸医院”。
The notion that Jews might have an equally valid claim to the land, or that the land ought to be divided between the two peoples, is anathema to Shawn. President Woodrow Wilson “was wrong to say that each people should have their own state,” he says.
犹太人可能对这片土地拥有同样合法的主张，或者这片土地应在两个民族间分割，这种观念对肖恩来说是大逆不道的。他说，伍德罗·威尔逊总统“主张每个民族都应拥有自己的国家，这是错误的”，“这种每个族群都应拥有自己国家的想法，结果并不算太好。” 然而，肖恩所谓的反对基于族群的建国原则，却为巴勒斯坦人做了一个奇怪的例外，他支持巴勒斯坦人的自决权。
“That hasn’t turned out to be that great, this idea that each ethnic group should have its own state.”And yet, Shawn’s supposed opposition to ethnic-based statehood makes a curious exception for Palestinians, whose right to self-determination he supports.
如果接受以色列人表现得像纳粹这一观点，就无法避免至少部分地为10月7日的袭击辩护。“即使在谈论10月7日对以色列人的可怕袭击时，假装那事凭空发生也有点荒谬，”肖恩对哈尔珀说。与此同时，他坚称自己“无权评判巴勒斯坦人”，且“随着时间的推移，自己更倾向于和平主义”。肖恩和哈尔珀以其广博的同理心自诩，但这种同理心并未延伸至以色列人。
If one accepts the proposition that Israelis are acting like Nazis, there’s no way of avoiding at least a partial justification of October 7. “Even in talking about the horrible attack on October 7 on the Israelis, it’s a little absurd to pretend that that came out of nowhere,” Shawn told Halper. At the same time, he insists that he is “in no position to judge the Palestinians” and is “more of a pacifist as time passes.”Shawn and Halper pride themselves on their expansive empathy, but it’s an empathy that doesn’t extend to Israelis.
“我心里充满了仇恨，”哈尔珀告诉肖恩。“不想听起来老套，但我认为这是爱心的另一面。我恨那些我恨的人，是因为我爱那些被他们杀害、压迫、致残、折磨的人。”当肖恩将反犹太主义归咎于其他犹太人，而非反犹太主义者时，他的道德近视眼暴露无遗。“内塔尼亚胡所做的对犹太人来说是难以想象的可怕，但愿没人把以色列人或内塔尼亚胡与犹太人、与你我联系在一起，”他对哈尔珀说。
“I have a lot of hate in my heart,” Halper tells Shawn. “Not to sound corny, but it is based, I think, on the flip side of love. The reason I hate the people I hate is because I love the people that they are killing, oppressing, maiming, torturing.”Shawn’s moral myopia is most fully on display when he blames other Jews, and not anti-Semites, for anti-Semitism. “What Netanyahu has done is unimaginably horrible for Jews, and let’s hope that nobody associates Israelis or Netanyahu with Jews, with you and me,” he tells Halper.
“我希望没人因他们的所作所为而怪罪我。但天哪。”左派中极少有人会将反黑人种族主义归咎于非洲政府的行为，且在新冠疫情早期源自中国时针对亚裔仇恨犯罪激增之际，许多人曾强烈谴责。但在他们认定表现不佳的犹太人，却要为针对其他犹太人的袭击负责。
“I hope nobody blames me for what they’re doing. But gee.”Few on the left would blame anti-Black racism on the behavior of African governments, and many spoke out forcefully against the spike in anti-Asian hate crimes in the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, which originated in China. But Jews whom they deem to be behaving badly can be held responsible for attacks on other Jews.
肖恩在2009年曾对一家英国犹太报纸坦诚地谈及他的动机：“我感到恐惧的是，犹太人被视为——尤其是被不了解历史的年轻一代视为——非常自以为是地行事的受害者制造者。从道德角度来看，当我们还是受害者时要好得多。”这正是以色列建国前犹太人的处境：无国无家，任凭强权摆布。历史上的反犹太主义者更愿意看到犹太人在压迫者面前畏缩。肖恩有权表达他的“自我厌恶”，但没有理由让世界其他地方的犹太人都屈从于这种观点。
Shawn was remarkably candid about his motivations in 2009, when he told a British Jewish newspaper, “I find it horrifying that Jews are seen—particularly by a young generation who do not know the history—as victimisers who are very self-righteous about what they do. From a moral point of view it was better when we were victims.”This is the position Jews were in before the creation of Israel: stateless and at the mercy of the powerful. Anti-Semites throughout history have preferred to see Jews cowering before their oppressors. Shawn is entitled to express “self-hate,” but there’s no reason the rest of the world’s Jews should subordinate themselves to this point of view.
无论是什么促使肖恩去年发表那些言论，它们重现之时，正值反犹太主义在美国空前泛滥。他在发表言论时几乎未引起关注，这表明随意指控种族灭绝已变得多么司空见惯，历史知识已彻底贬值。如今，这种诽谤被像点菜单上的菜品一样轻率地抛出，完美诠释了我们这个时代的道德错乱。
Whatever moved Shawn to make his remarks last year, they have reappeared at a time when anti-Semitism is flourishing in America like never before. That his comments received so little notice at the time they were spoken shows how routine casual accusations of genocide had already become, and how thoroughly knowledge of history had depreciated. Today, such calumnies are uttered as flippantly as if they were items on a menu, perfectly encapsulating the moral derangement of our times.