The state we're in

By D.L. | JERUSALEM

PERHAPS because herring was a respected staple in the Eastern European Jewish shtetl, there is no literal translation in Yiddish of the English phrase, "red herring". Instead, Yiddish-speaking Jews use the expression "climbing up the smooth walls" to accuse someone of coming up with superfluous and irrelevant arguments in order to cloud the issue.

That expression, which has made its way into Hebrew, comes to mind whenever you hear—as you frequently do—Binyamin Netanyahu demanding that the Palestinians recognise Israel as a "Jewish state". Israel was defined by the United Nations at its inception as the Jewish state. Its declaration of independence promised its non-Jewish citizens equal rights. For the world at large, "Israel" and "the Jewish state" have always been synonymous.