特朗普中东政策将损及盟友约旦

Of all the acts of political vandalism Donald Trump has committed during his first year in the White House, among the most gratuitous was his decision last month to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. It thereby foreclosed on any possible two-state outcome to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which the occupied Arab east of the holy city would become the capital of an independent Palestine.

唐纳德特朗普(Donald Trump)入主白宫第一年做出的所有政治破坏举动中，最没有道理的行为之一是他上月决定承认耶路撒冷为以色列首都。此举排除了通过“两国方案”解决巴以冲突的可能性，在可能达成的方案中，以色列侵占的耶路撒冷东部将成为巴勒斯坦独立建国后的首都。

East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Six Day war and then illegally annexed, is at the religiously combustible core of a conflict that, although recently eclipsed by the ferocity of the civil war in Syria and the struggle against Isis, risks being reignited.

以色列在1967年的“六日战争”中夺取了东耶路撒冷并将之非法吞并，眼下一场冲突可能再度爆发，而东耶路撒冷是其中充斥着宗教紧张气息的核心，只不过近期人们被叙利亚内战和打击“伊斯兰国”(ISIS)战争的激烈局势吸引了注意力。

But President Trump’s Jerusalem decision also compromises a fragile western ally, Jordan, which has been a pivot of regional stability.

但特朗普关于耶路撒冷的决定还将损害一个脆弱的西方盟友、对地区稳定有着至关重要的作用的约旦。

Jordan’s Hashemite monarchy, in its current incarnation of King Abdullah, is descended from the house of the Prophet Mohammed. In Muslim belief, the prophet rose to heaven from the Dome of the Rock, which is inside the old city’s Haram ash-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary, containing al-Aqsa mosque and known to Jews as Temple Mount. By tradition as well as by Jordan’s 1994 peace treaty with Israel, the Hashemites are the guardians of Jerusalem’s Islamic (and Christian) holy places. Any change in the city’s status strikes at their legitimacy. That is serious enough, but it is not all.

约旦哈希姆王室是先知穆罕默德家族的后裔，现任君主是阿卜杜拉国王(King Abdullah)。在穆斯林的信仰中，先知穆罕默德从圆顶清真寺(Dome of the Rock)升天，这座清真寺位于耶路撒冷老城的哈兰阿沙立府(Haram ash-Sharif)内，哈兰阿沙立府亦称神圣禁地(Noble Sanctuary)，犹太人称为圣殿山(Temple Mount)，里面还坐落有阿克萨清真寺( al-Aqsa mosque)。根据传统以及约旦与以色列在1994年签订的和平条约，哈希姆家族是耶路撒冷伊斯兰（和基督教）圣地的守护人。耶路撒冷地位的任何变化都会影响他们的合法性。这已经足够严重了，但还不止于此。

The majority of Jordan’s population is Palestinian, refugees from the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948 and 1967. Hardline irredentists in the rightwing Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu, emboldened by US recognition of Jerusalem, are pushing to annex big chunks of the Palestinian West Bank colonised by Jewish settlers. They are also reviving the old “Jordan is Palestine” mantra, insisting the Palestinians already have a state: Jordan. For Jordan this is existential. Its leaders fear Israel will trigger a third exodus of Palestinians across the Jordan river, and sabotage the already fragile demographic balance of the kingdom.

约旦人口以巴勒斯坦人为主，他们是1948年和1967年阿以战争中的难民。本雅明内塔尼亚胡(Benjamin Netanyahu)领导的以色列右翼政府中强硬的民族统一主义者受到美国承认耶路撒冷为以色列首都的鼓舞，正推动吞并被犹太定居者殖民化的巴勒斯坦西岸的大片土地。他们还重弹“约旦即巴勒斯坦”的老调，坚称巴勒斯坦人已经拥有了一个国家：约旦。对于约旦而言，这事关存亡。约旦领导人担心以色列将触发巴勒斯坦人第三次跨过约旦河撤离，破坏约旦本就脆弱的人口平衡。

After the Trump move on Jerusalem, King Abdullah told the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the 57-member umbrella group of Muslim countries, that a consensual solution to Jerusalem was “the key to ending the historical conflict in the Middle East”. The OIC, founded half a century ago in response to an arson attack on al-Aqsa mosque, responded to the US president’s act of political arson by declaring East Jerusalem the capital of Palestine. Empty rhetoric Mostly. But it contains within it the kernel of a new religious war over Jerusalem for any extremist who wants to grasp it.

在特朗普承认耶路撒冷为以色列首都后，阿卜杜拉国王告诉有57个成员国的穆斯林国家组织伊斯兰合作组织(Organisation of Islamic Cooperation)，就耶路撒冷问题达成协商一致的解决方案是“结束中东历史冲突的关键”。伊斯兰合作组织是半个世纪以前为回应阿克萨清真寺遭到纵火袭击的事件而成立的。针对美国总统的政治纵火行为，该组织的回应是宣布东耶路撒冷为巴勒斯坦首都。这不过是空洞的言辞？基本上是。但对于任何有心利用的极端主义者而言，其中包含着围绕耶路撒冷爆发一场新宗教战争的要点。

While Mr Trump’s erratic behaviour has been well charted, a puzzle remains: the position of Saudi Arabia, under the de facto rule of its young crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, or MbS. The Saudis criticised the US Jerusalem move, but sent low-ranking officials to the OIC summit to discuss it.

尽管特朗普的古怪行为有迹可循，但仍存在一个疑问：在年轻王储穆罕默德本萨勒曼(Mohammed bin Salman)实际统治下的沙特阿拉伯抱着什么立场？沙特批评美国承认耶路撒冷为以色列首都的决定，却只派出低级别官员参加伊斯兰合作组织讨论此事的峰会。

The Saudis put pressure on Jordan to do the same. But King Abdullah went anyway. Jordan also voted in condemnation of the US decision at the UN General Assembly, risking American reprisals — in Jordan’s case, vital aid worth $1.2bn last year. Jordan says it received only two-thirds of the help it needs to look after the roughly 1m Syrian refugees inside its borders.

沙特向约旦施压，要求后者也这么做。阿卜杜拉国王却还是参加了峰会。约旦还在联合国大会(UN General Assembly)上投票支持谴责美国的决定，冒着可能被美国报复的风险——去年约旦接收到的重要援助价值12亿美元。约旦表示，该国仅获得了安置该国境内约100万叙利亚难民所需援助的三分之二。

Abdullah’s father, the late King Hussein — the gold-standard of west-leaning Arab moderation of his time, who attended 45 clandestine meetings with Israel in his search for peace — faced similar quandaries. King Hussein knew the Arabs’ defeat was likely in the 1967 war but took part anyway, losing the West Bank and East Jerusalem to Israel. He stood apart from the US-led coalition to eject Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1990-91, knowing he faced ostracism and a period of penury.

阿卜杜拉的父亲、已故的侯赛因国王(King Hussein)曾经面临类似窘境。侯赛因国王是当时典型的亲西方的阿拉伯温和派，他为了寻求和平曾45次参加与以色列的秘密会晤。1967年的战争中侯赛因国王知道阿拉伯国家可能要输，但仍然参战，让以色列夺走了西岸和东耶路撒冷。他没有参与1990年到1991年间以美国为首的盟军将萨达姆侯赛因(Saddam Hussein)赶出科威特的战争，自知将被孤立并面临一段赤贫期。

All of this was trumped by the need for legitimacy. After all, his own grandfather (the present king’s great-grandfather) the arch-pragmatist King Abdullah I, was assassinated at al-Aqsa mosque in 1951 after a campaign accusing him of collaboration with Zionist Israel.

所有这一切都抵不过对合法性的需要。毕竟，他自己的祖父（现任国王的曾祖父）——务实主义者阿卜杜拉一世(King Abdullah I)在一场指责他与犹太复国主义的以色列合作的运动后，于1951年在阿克萨清真寺被暗杀。

Some in Jordan and elsewhere in the Arab world now believe Saudi Arabia is colluding with the US to impose a blatantly pro-Israel solution on the Palestinians — and that Jerusalem is the first instalment. MbS has met regularly with Mr Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, mandated by the US president to deliver the “ultimate deal”. Based on what is dribbling out from stunned Palestinians, this would amount to supra-municipal government in disconnected cantons of the West Bank, with the town of Abu Dis on the edge of Jerusalem as a “capital”. This ticking bomb of territory might even be attached to an unwilling and vulnerable Jordan.

在约旦以及阿拉伯世界的其他地方，现在有一些人认为，沙特正在与美国勾结，强行让巴勒斯坦人接受一个公然亲以色列的解决方案——而耶路撒冷是计划中的第一阶段。沙特王储本萨勒曼定期与特朗普的女婿贾里德库什纳(Jared Kushner)会晤，后者被特朗普委任达成“最终协议”。根据震惊的巴勒斯坦人陆续透露的情况，这将相当于在西岸彼此不相连接的地区建立超城市政府当局(supra-municipal government)，把位于耶路撒冷边缘的阿布迪斯作为“首都”。这块定时炸弹般的领土甚至可能附属于不情愿且脆弱的约旦。

This, a dangerous fantasy, might actually be attempted under President Trump. There is suspicion that the House of Saud even wants to take oversight of Jerusalem’s Islamic sites from the Hashemites — MbS’s grandfather took the holy cities of Mecca and Medina from them by conquest in 1925. But legitimacy matters. Saudi monarchs prefer to style themselves custodians of the holy places rather than kings, and Jerusalem might be a step too far.

这是一个危险的幻想，实际上他们可能在特朗普的领导下进行尝试。人们怀疑沙特王室甚至想要从哈希姆家族那里拿走对耶路撒冷伊斯兰圣地的守护权——本萨勒曼的祖父在1925年从他们手里夺走了麦加和麦地那圣城。但合法性至关重要。沙特君主更喜欢把自己称为圣地的守护者而不是国王，而抢占耶路撒冷可能太过分了。

King Abdullah, moreover, is a moderate leader in a region where mainstream Sunni leadership has almost died out. MbS says he wants to revive it, but it looks at present as though he is helping undermine one of its rare exemplars.

此外，在一个主流逊尼派的领导力差不多已经消失的地区，阿卜杜拉国王是一个温和的领导人。本萨勒曼说他希望重振这种领导力，但现在看起来，他却在帮助削弱这种领导力为数不多的典范之一。