以色列前领导人佩雷斯逝世

Shimon Peres, the Israeli leader and Nobel Prize-winning peacemaker who coined the phrase the new Middle East, has died at the age of 93 with the region still sadly reminiscent of the old one.

以色列前领导人、曾获诺贝尔奖(Nobel Prize)并创造新中东(the new Middle East)一词的和平缔造者希蒙•佩雷斯(Shimon Peres)逝世，享年93岁。令人遗憾的是，他身后的中东地区仍然和过去没什么两样。

One of Israel’s longest-serving public officials, he was prime minister, foreign minister and president at different times and played a role in the country’s history from before its founding.

佩雷斯是以色列供职时间最长的政府官员之一，他曾在不同时期担任过总理、外交部长和总统，在以色列建国过程中和建国以来的历史上发挥过重要作用。

He will be best remembered as a father of the Oslo accords, the blueprint that was meant to create a Palestinian state.

他最为人铭记的身份将是《奥斯陆协议》(Oslo Accords)的缔造者之一，该协议是一份旨在建立一个巴勒斯坦国的蓝图。

Peres’ vision of a brighter future for the region was shattered during his later years, when the Israeli-Palestinian peace process floundered amid the violence of the second Palestinian intifada; hopes for a two-state solution all but vanished.

在协议签署后的若干年里，佩雷斯对该地区更光明前景的设想被击得粉碎，巴以和平进程因第二次巴勒斯坦大起义(the second Palestinian intifada)的暴力冲突而搁浅；达成两国方案(two-state solution)的希望几近破灭。

He grew increasingly disillusioned that the prospects for peace had slipped away under successive hardline governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu, the rightwing prime minister who defeated him and his Labour party at the polls in 1996 and went on to serve four terms in office.

令佩雷斯愈发失望的是，在本雅明•内塔尼亚胡(Benjamin Netanyahu)领导的连续几届强硬派政府的执政下，实现和平的可能性已经消失。来自右翼阵营的内塔尼亚胡在1996年的选举中击败了佩雷斯及其所在的工党(Labour)，并出任了四届总理。

While remaining a voice for peace as Israel’s ninth president in 2007-14, his interventions on matters of war and peace in that ceremonial role were largely symbolic.

尽管在2007年到2014年期间，作为以色列第九任总统的佩雷斯依然是和平的一大呼吁者，但在这一礼仪性的职位上，他对战争与和平事务的干预基本上只具象征性意义。

As an elder of Israel’s postwar Ashkenazi liberal elite, he often seemed out of step with a demographically changing Israel as it came to display a right-leaning political plurality and a citizenry sceptical about ever reaching a negotiated peace deal with the Palestinians.

作为以色列战后阿什肯纳兹犹太人自由派精英中的一位长者，他常常显得与人口构成正在变化的以色列不太合拍。在以色列政坛，右倾人士开始占相对多数，公民们对能否通过谈判与巴勒斯坦人达成和平协议开始持怀疑态度。

Shimon Peres was born Szymon Perski on August 2 1923 in what was Wieniawa in Poland (today Vishniev, Belarus) and sailed with his parents, a wealthy timber merchant and a volunteer librarian, at the age of 11 to British Mandate Palestine.

希蒙•佩雷斯1923年8月2日生于波兰的维涅瓦（Wieniawa，即今白俄罗斯的维什涅瓦(Vishniev)），出生时的名字叫希蒙•佩尔斯基(Szymon Perski)。11岁那年，他随父母坐船来到英国托管的巴勒斯坦。他的父亲是一位富有的木材商人，母亲是一位志愿图书管理员。