Thus spoke Netanyahu

摘要

IT IS NOT easy to translate the Hebrew word davka. It means something like "despite it all" and "because of", but with a sense of deliberate precision: I was at home all day, but the delivery man came davka during the half-hour when I was out. It can connote an intent to irritate: my girlfriend knows we disagree about politics, but she always davka brings it up. In 2003 Ariel Sharon, a pugnacious former prime minister, cited a young American explaining the word to friends back home: "Davka means doing or thinking something both in spite of and because of a given situation."