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Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-levy6jul06,1,5652561.story?coll=la-home-world
A French Intellectual's Surprising Views on America and Israel
(Los Angeles Times) Sebastian Rotella- The most recognizable initials in France today are probably BHL - for Bernard-Henri Levy: philosopher, author, journalist, filmmaker, and all-around celebrity intellectual. Yet Levy goes against the grain of certain stereotypes and prevailing ideologies. "Anti-Americanism is a horror," Levy says. "It is a magnet of the worst. In the entire world, and in France in particular, everything that is the worst in people's heads comes together around anti-Americanism: racism, nationalism, chauvinism, anti-Semitism." Levy, who is Jewish, also breaks ranks with the European intelligentsia when it comes to Israel, which he sees as a rare democracy in a region full of strongman regimes. "The Palestinian 'victimocracy' has a tendency to hide wars that are infinitely longer and more murderous," Levy notes. "Because we all have our eyes locked on one war alone...this emphasis has the terrible effect of hiding, of silencing, of erasing from our memories and our mental map the other wars that are thousands of times more lethal."