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

这是一段是讲巴以和谈的。Bennett是以色列家园党领袖，声称会由于以色列与巴基斯坦进行和平谈判而带领其政党退出联合政府。接着就是这一句话了。for all his bark, 在这里，是不是指他的这些言论？

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

本文仅代表作者本人观点，与本网立场无关。欢迎大家讨论学术问题，尊重他人，禁止人身攻击和发布一切违反国家现行法律法规的内容。

About the author:

Zhang Xin（张欣） 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.