以色列即将举行的选举，最适合从阿尔戈斯宫殿的屋顶上观看。埃斯库罗斯的《阿伽门农》是《俄瑞斯忒亚》三部曲的第一部，故事便始于此处：一名守望者等待着宣告特洛伊陷落的烽火。他的第一句话是：“我祈求众神解除我的劳苦，/ 让我结束这整年的守望。”他并非渴望更多消息，而是渴望守望的终结。
Israel’s coming election is best watched from a palace roof in Argos. Aeschylus’ “Agamemnon,” the first play of the Oresteia trilogy, begins there, with a watchman waiting for the beacon announcing Troy’s fall. His first words: “I pray the gods to quit me of my toils, / To close the watch I keep, this livelong year.”He is not asking for more news.
在以色列，守望似乎永无止境。睡前最后一个动作，是伸手拿起床头柜上的手机查看新闻。若半夜醒来，又会再看一次。早晨咖啡之前，一天总是从同一个地方开始：伊朗发生了什么？是否发布了预备役征召令？你睡着时，政府做了什么？
He is asking for the watching to end. In Israel, the watching never seems to end. The last act before sleep is to reach for the phone on the night stand to check for news. If you wake during the night, you check it again. Before morning coffee, the day begins in the same place: Has something happened in Iran? Has a reserve call-up been announced?
当然，如今人们时刻盯着手机，这已成为人类处境的一部分。对以色列人来说，这种状态尤为尖锐。在智能手机时代之前，收音机整点新闻的提示音能让整辆公交车瞬间安静下来。工具是新的，习惯却是旧的。以色列人查看麻烦的方式，就像其他地方的人查看天气一样。但没有人能决定天气。
What did the government do while you slept? Being glued to a phone, of course, is now part of the human condition. It is especially acute for Israelis. Before the smartphone era, the beeps signaling the hourly news bulletin on the radio could silence a whole bus. The instrument is new; the habit is not. Israelis check for trouble the way people elsewhere check for rain.
10月27日，以色列人将投票选出自2023年10月7日灾难以来的首届全国政府。在那场灾难中，哈马斯领导的袭击者杀害了1200人，并绑架了251人。这次选举将对那天的责任作出裁决，并可能决定总理本雅明·内塔尼亚胡的政治未来。在所有这一切之下，隐藏着一个更私密的问题：以色列人能否重新获得不必时刻监视政府的普通特权？
But nobody decides the weather. On Oct. 27, Israelis will vote in their first national election since the catastrophe of Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led attackers killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 others. The election will pass judgment on responsibility for that day and could help decide Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political future. Beneath it all lies a more intimate question: Can Israelis recover the ordinary privilege of not having to watch their government all the time?
以色列从未完全解除警戒。1948年5月宣布的紧急状态至今仍在。一个紧急状态已经存在得足够久，以至于它的“孩子”都有了孙子，这本身就是一种荒诞。以色列人在战争中工作，围绕导弹威胁规划假期，离开避难所后继续晚餐。生活继续着；警戒从未关闭。
Israel has never entirely been off alert. A state of emergency declared in May 1948 remains. There is something absurd about a national emergency old enough to have grandchildren. Israelis work through wars, plan holidays around missile threats and resume dinner after leaving the shelter. Life goes on; vigilance never turns off.
两个多世纪前，法裔瑞士政治思想家本杰明·康斯坦论证说，代议制政府让公民能够将治理事务委托给他人，同时保留监督统治者的义务。民主最安静的承诺之一，是政治不必占据私人生活的每一小时。对许多以色列人而言，这一承诺已然破裂：他们无法停止注视。
More than two centuries ago, the French Swiss political thinker Benjamin Constant argued that representative government allowed citizens to entrust the work of governing to others while retaining the duty to watch those who govern. One of democracy’s quietest promises is that politics need not occupy every hour of private life. For many Israelis that promise has broken down: They cannot stop watching.