>From his Jan 4, 2009 appearance on CNN:
<snip>
LEVY: The other evidence is that -- you just asked previously how many dead in Israel from these rockets. This is a good question. But the answer is, why so little casualties?
The price of that is that a lot of people in Israel, all of the southern part of the territory, lives in caves, lives in the basements of the buildings. So, of course there is little casualties. But the price of that is an absolutely un-normal life.
I was in Sderot, one of the cities bombed daily since month. I was there a few months ago. People live there like the people of Sarajevo 15 years ago, leaving the streets a ghost city, a ghost town. No city in America or in Europe could live this way.
ZAKARIA: But do you believe, Bernard, that the effect of the Israeli incursion is straining relations in Europe? Is it causing some kind of spillover, you know, the way that people talk about events in the Middle East as having a radicalizing effect around the world?
LEVY: Of course, it is a question. But there is another question, which is that Gaza has to be liberated from the Hamas. The worst enemy of the Palestinian people, the worst enemy is not Israel, is not, of course, Mahmoud Abbas -- is the Hamas.
Hamas is the enemy of the Palestinian people. This Israeli operation, of course, is an operation in favor of Israel, but also in favor of the Palestinian people.
You know, when the Hamas decided to break the cease-fire, when they said in a unilateral way would break the cease-fire, they knew what they did. They knew that they were exposing their people, their children, transformed into some living "boucliers," some human shields. They transformed them into targets. The worst enemy of the Palestinian is today the Hamas. This is the main question.
[...]
full at --
<http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0901/04/fzgps.01.html>
None of this repetition of nonsense which has been disproved many times (see: leninology.blogspot.com for ongoing analysis) is surprising to anyone who has followed BHL's career or even anyone who, knowing nothing else about the man, simply paid close attention to the statements he made re: Israel and humanitarianism during the debate with Zizek.
Only the most depraved or spell trapped could seriously describe Israel's actions as bringing benefit to the Palestinians (or even the Israelis). It takes a special sort of sinister mush headedness to describe bombing sorties and artillery barrages as flowers of lasting peace.
But, as Richard Seymour comprehensively details in The Liberal Defense of Murder, this is exactly what our would-be saviors routinely do.
Liberal Defense of Murder at Verso:
<http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml>
Doug's excellent interview with Mr. Seymour about the book:
<http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html#081127>
.d.