2014年经济学人 认可巴勒斯坦 大波纷争来袭

（单词翻译）

Recognising Palestine

A state of things to come

Britain votes to recognise a Palestinian state

What would Arthur Balfour say?

IN HIS declaration of 1917 giving Britain's backing for the creation of a Jewish homeland, Arthur Balfour, the then foreign secretary, undertook to uphold the civil and religious rights of the native population of Palestine. A century later after less than total success, Britain's Parliament added national rights as well. On October 13th it voted by 274 votes to 12 to recognise a Palestinian state.

On the face of it, the backbench vote will have little impact. It is not binding¹, sets no deadline for recognition and will not change government policy, says David Cameron, the Conservative prime minister. Over half of MPs abstained².

But as a barometer³ of European sentiment, the vote is telling. Since last summer's Gaza war and recent appropriations⁴ of Palestinian land, even Israel's allies have found its actions hard to stomach. “If it is losing people like me, it is going to be losing a lot of people,” said Richard Ottaway, the pro-Israel chairman of Parliament's foreign affairs committee.

To downplay the significance of the vote, Mr Cameron abstained. Yet this might also reflect growing ambivalence⁵ towards Israel, some claimed. After siding with Israel early in the Gaza war, Mr Cameron denounced Israel's post-war landgrab as “utterly deplorable”.

That growing concern has had little discernible impact on relations. Bilateral⁶ trade has risen 28% year-on-year. And Israel can be thick-skinned about how the world views it. “There's a bit of a tendency to write off Europeans as Nazi-hugging anti-semites,” says a Western diplomat⁷ in Tel Aviv. But the vote may encourage others in Europe to do more than just urge the parties to end Israel's occupations by negotiation⁸, as they have for 23 years. Earlier this month, Sweden's new prime minister, Stefan Lofven, said his country, too, would recognise a Palestinian state. And when the issue of Palestinian UN membership next comes to the Security Council, as it may soon, the parliamentary vote might make it a bit harder for Britain to oppose it.