世界上有一种社会学自然法则：弱者对强者的思考多于强者对弱者的思考。但当涉及即将到来的美国和以色列选举时，这一法则失效了。
A kind of sociological law of nature in the world holds that the weak think about the strong more than the strong think about the weak. When it comes to the upcoming American and Israeli elections, this law breaks down.
如今，美国的左翼和右翼政客似乎往往更关注以色列、以色列对待巴勒斯坦人的方式及其在中东的政策，而不是诸如一个教室里的孩子人数或失业率等通常的本地关切。这种关注让许多以色列人感到困惑，但还有一个更大的谜团：以色列对美国选举缺乏兴趣。
Politicians on the left and right in the United States these days often seem more focused on Israel, its treatment of the Palestinians and its policies in the Middle East than on the usual local concerns, like the number of children in a classroom or unemployment. This preoccupation is a puzzle to many Israelis, but there is a bigger conundrum: the absence of Israeli interest in the American elections.
在10月27日选举之前，以色列的候选人——无论是总理本雅明·内塔尼亚胡还是他的对手——都没有就以色列在美国和世界地位的变化与选民进行严肃的对话。以色列的形象危机甚至没有进入他们竞选活动的五大核心议题。一种社会学自然法则确实被打破了。美国这个超级大国痴迷于以色列，而以色列对其在美国的地位相对漠不关心。如果内塔尼亚胡输掉选举，那与以色列的声誉危机毫无关系。如果他获胜——这很有可能——那也与特朗普10月18日的背书毫无关系。
None of the candidates, neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor his opponents, in Israel is having a serious conversation with voters ahead of the Oct. 27 contest about Israel’s shifting status in the United States and the world. Israel’s image crisis does not even break into the top five central issues in their campaigns. A sociological law of nature has indeed been broken. The American superpower obsesses about Israel, and Israel is relatively indifferent to its status in the United States. If Mr. Netanyahu loses the election, it won’t have anything to do with Israel’s reputational crisis. If he wins, which is very possible, it won’t have anything to do with Mr. Trump’s endorsement on Oct. 18.
以色列人真的不在乎世界怎么看待他们吗？不。他们非常在乎。但更让他们担忧的是他们的敌人怎么想。以色列的问题在于，它必须培养两种声誉，一种面向西方，一种面向中东。这两种声誉相互冲突。以色列人希望西方世界爱他们，但又希望他们在中东的敌人惧怕他们。
Do Israelis really not care what the world thinks about them? No. They care a lot. But what concerns them even more is what their enemies think. Israel’s problem is that it must cultivate two reputations, one for the West and one for the Middle East. These two reputations clash. Israelis want the Western world to love them, but their enemies in the Middle East to fear them.
在哈马斯于10月7日屠杀以色列人后的几天里，大多数西方国家对以色列表现出了深切的同情。但硬币有另一面。哈马斯的入侵和屠杀向周边地区发出了信号：以色列已失去力量。西方的关爱感动了以色列人，但敌人的恐惧消散却引发了生存焦虑。
In the days after the Oct. 7 massacre of Israelis by Hamas, most Western countries displayed a deep empathy for Israel. But the coin had another side. Hamas’s invasion and the slaughter signaled to the neighborhood that Israel had lost power. Western love moved Israelis, but their enemies’ dissipation of fear aroused existential anxiety.
三年后，以色列军队取得的成果——包括刺杀哈马斯和真主党领导人、瓦解其指挥链以及使其发射火箭弹的能力瘫痪——恢复了以色列军队在中东的威慑力。麻烦在于，恢复以色列在该地区形象的行动，严重损害了其在西方的形象。
Three years later, the successes of the Israeli Army, which included assassination of the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, the dismantling of their chains of command and the disabling of their ability to fire rockets, rehabilitated the army’s deterrent power in the Middle East. The trouble is that the actions that restored Israel’s image in the region have severely damaged its image in the West.
在恐惧与关爱之间，这是一场零和博弈。以色列为维持西方同情心可能表现出的任何克制，都会阻碍其恢复敌人的恐惧感。而它为建立恐惧感所做的一切，都在侵蚀同情心。关键在于，它无法两者兼得。
Between fear and love, it’s a zero-sum game. Any restraint that Israel might have shown to maintain Western sympathy would have prevented it from restoring the fear felt by its enemies. And everything it did to establish fear eroded sympathy. The catch is, it can’t have both.
通过区分两类道德困境——二元困境与悲剧性困境，可以理解这一悖论。二元困境让人处于一个好选择与一个坏选择之间。悲剧性困境则让人处于坏选择与坏选择之间。在奥德修斯回伊萨卡的旅程的某个阶段，他的船被迫航行在一条极其狭窄的海峡中。一侧是名为斯库拉的六头怪物。如果靠近它，六名士兵将被吞噬。另一侧是卡律布狄斯，一个吞吐海水制造漩涡的怪物，会将船只及全体船员吞没。
This paradox can be understood by distinguishing between two types of moral dilemmas, binary and tragic. A binary dilemma positions people between a good choice and a bad choice. A tragic dilemma places them between bad and bad. In one of the stages of Odysseus’ journey home to Ithaca, his ship is forced to navigate an extremely narrow strait. On one side is a six-headed monster called Scylla. If they near it, six soldiers will be devoured. On the other side is Charybdis, a monster that swallows and belches out seawater, creating a maelstrom that will take down the ship and all its men.
奥德修斯必须在两者中做出选择。他询问女神喀耳刻，能否避开漩涡同时击退另一侧的怪物，从而安全脱险。她解释说这是不可能的，他唯一的理性选择是远离漩涡、靠近斯库拉。奥德修斯必须选择灾难，以避免毁灭。
Odysseus must choose between the two. He asks the goddess Circe whether he can stay clear of the whirlpool while repelling the monster on the other side, and thus emerge safely. She explains that this is impossible and that the only rational course before him is to stay away from the whirlpool and approach Scylla. Odysseus must choose disaster in order to avoid annihilation.
10月7日之后，以色列人也面临着一个悲剧性的两难困境，被迫在两个糟糕的选项之间做出选择。哈马斯和真主党不是普通军队；它们是恐怖军队。有什么区别？普通军队保卫公民；恐怖军队则利用公民为自己做防御。与这种军队作战需要在平民区进行地面行动——这是大规模死亡和毁灭的蓝图。开战的决定是一个糟糕的决定。
After Oct. 7, Israelis also faced a tragic dilemma, forced to choose between two bad options. Hamas and Hezbollah are not ordinary armies; they are terrorist armies. What’s the difference? An ordinary army defends its citizens; a terrorist one uses citizens for its own defense. Going to war against an army of this kind requires ground operations amid a civilian population — a blueprint for large-scale death and devastation. The decision to go to war was a bad decision.
但不开战会让哈马斯保留重演屠杀的能力，向以色列的敌人发出信号，表明以色列已失去自卫能力，并剥夺以色列人对自己能在本国继续建设未来的信心。不开战的决定同样是一个糟糕的决定。
But not going to war would have left Hamas with the ability to repeat the massacre, signaled to Israel’s enemies that it had lost the ability to defend itself and stripped Israelis of confidence that they could continue building a future in their own country. The decision not to go to war would also have been a bad decision.
对大多数以色列人来说，在第一个选项和第二个选项之间做选择，就是在一个六头怪物和一个会淹死所有人的怪物之间做选择。尽管这个决定付出了沉重代价，但并未受到以色列选民的审判。战争及其正当性并非当前选举中公众辩论的话题。这也不是内塔尼亚胡先生与竞相取代他的候选人之间的分歧议题之一。以色列存在广泛共识：我们选择了灾难，而非毁灭。
For most Israelis, the choice between the first option and the second is a choice between a six-headed monster and one that will drown them all. Despite the heavy costs of this decision, it is not being judged by Israeli voters. The war and its justifiability are not topics of public debate in the current elections. It is not one of the issues separating Mr. Netanyahu from the candidates who are vying to replace him. There is broad agreement in Israel: We chose disaster over annihilation.
然而，就在以色列人感到道德清晰之际，他们却体验到了西方的道德审判。以色列人与西方对以色列行为看法的这种脱节，源于一种范畴性的失败。这种失败解释了为什么以色列今天是世界上最被误解的国家。它陷入了一个悲剧性的两难困境，却被审判得仿佛置身于一个二元对立的困境之中。以色列被要求在“更坏”和“更糟”之间做选择，却被审判得仿佛它在“更坏”和“更好”之间做了选择。
Yet where Israelis feel moral clarity, they experience the moral judgment of the West. This disconnect between how Israelis and the West view Israel’s behavior is rooted in a categorical failure. It is a failure that explains why Israel today is the most misunderstood nation in the world. It was caught up in a tragic dilemma, but it was judged as if it were in a binary one. Israel was required to choose bad over worse, but judged as if it chose bad over good.
这次选举带来了另一个两难困境。如今的以色列分裂为两大阵营：内塔尼亚胡的支持者和反对者。对许多以色列人而言，这是非黑即白的——一方是坏的，另一方是好的。但如果选举如民调预测的那样陷入僵局，以色列很可能面临两条截然不同的道路，且都极不受欢迎：再次举行选举，或者由内塔尼亚胡与其主要对手加迪·艾森科特组建权力分享政府。在这种情况下，许多以色列人将再次面临一个悲剧性的两难选择——这一次是在国内战线上。
The elections present another dilemma. Israel today is divided into two blocs: Mr. Netanyahu’s supporters and his opponents. For many Israelis, this is binary — one is bad, the other good. But if the election produces a stalemate, as polls predict, Israel will likely face two different paths, both very unpopular: another election or a power-sharing government between Mr. Netanyahu and Gadi Eisenkot, his main rival. In that case, many Israelis will once again face a tragic dilemma — this time on the domestic front.
米卡·古德曼是耶路撒冷沙洛姆·哈特曼研究所的研究员，也是贝特·阿维·哈伊播客节目“思想党”的联合主持人。他著有七本书，其中包括《第67号困境：左派、右派与六日战争的遗产》。插图由《纽约时报》制作；素材图片来自盖蒂图片社。
Micah Goodman is a research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and co-host of Beit Avi Chai’s “The Party of Thoughts” podcast. He is the author of seven books, including “Catch-67: The Left, the Right and the Legacy of the Six-Day War.”Photo illustration by The New York Times; source images by Getty Images.