But for all his bark, Mr Bennett, who is also the minister for trade, opted to keep his government seat.

這是一段是講巴以和談的。Bennett是以色列家園黨領袖，聲稱會由于以色列與巴基斯坦進行和平談判而帶領其政黨退出聯合政府。接著就是這一句話了。for all his bark, 在這里，是不是指他的這些言論？

My comments:

Bark as in all bark and no bite.

This idiom, of course, originally describes dogs. All dogs bark, apparently, but not all of them bite. And sometimes it is observed that dogs that bark the loudest are not the most aggressive ones. They just threaten you with their loud voice, but won’t actually make use of their teeth and nails.

Mr Bennet, Naftali Bennett that is, the head of the Jewish Home party, had repeatedly threatened to pull out of the government ahead of the latest resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

But it turned out to be all bark and no bite, as he eventually kept his government seat.

Hence, perhaps, Mr Bennett is not so tough (and inflexible) as he appears to be.

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Go to Zhang Xin's column

本文僅代表作者本人觀點，與本網立場無關。歡迎大家討論學術問題，尊重他人，禁止人身攻擊和發布一切違反國家現行法律法規的內容。

About the author:

Zhang Xin（張欣） has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.