Bernard Henri Levy and the Destruction of Libya

• November 20, 2013, 6:57 am

By Ramzy Baroud

While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is "the world’s most influential Jew", Bernard-Henri Levy is number 45, according to an article published in the Jerusalem Post, on May 21, 2010. Levy, per the Post’s standards, came only two spots behind Irving Moskowitz, a "Florida-based tycoon considered the leading supporter of Jewish construction in east Jerusalem".

To claim that at best Levy is an intellectual fraud is to miss a clear logic that seems to unite much of the man’s activities, work and writings. He seems obsessed with "liberating" Muslims, from Bosnia to Pakistan, to Libya and elsewhere. However, this would not qualify as a healthy obsession stemming from overt love for and fascination with their religion, culture and myriad ways of life.

Throughout his oddly defined career, Levy has done much harm by at times serving as a lackey for those in power, and at others leading his own crusades. He is a big fan of military intervention, and his profile is dotted with references to Muslim countries and military intervention from Afghanistan to Sudan and finally Libya.

Writing in the New York magazine on Dec 26, 2011, Benjamin Wallace-Wells spoke of the French "philosopher" as if he were referencing a messiah that was not afraid to promote violence for the greater good of mankind.

In "European Superhero Quashes Libyan Dictator", Wallace-Wells wrote of the "philosopher [who] managed to goad the world into vanquishing an evil villain". The villain in question is, of course, Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader who was ousted and brutally murdered after reportedly being sodomized by rebels following his capture in October 2011.

A detailed analysis by Global Post of the sexual assault of the leader of one of Africa’s most prominent countries was published in CBS news and other media.

Levy, who at times appeared to be the West’s most visible war-on-Libya advocate, has largely disappeared from view within the Libyan context. He is perhaps stirring trouble in some other place in the name of his dubious philosophy. His mission in Libya, which is now in a much worse state it has ever reached during the reign of Gaddafi, has been accomplished. The "evil dictator" has been defeated, and that’s that.

Never mind that the country is now divided between tribes and militias, and that the "post-democracy" Prime Minister Ali Zeidan was recently kidnapped by one unruly militia to be freed by another.

In March 2011, Levy took it upon himself to fly to Benghazi to "engage" Libya’s insurgents. It was a defining moment, for it was that type of mediation that empowered armed groups to transform a regional uprising into an all-out war involving the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Armed with what was a willful misinterpretation of UN resolution 1973, of March 17, 2011, NATO lead a major military offensive on a country armed with primitive air defenses and a poorly equipped army. Western countries channeled massive shipments of weapons to Libyan groups in the name of preventing massacres allegedly about to be carried out by Gaddafi’s loyalists.

Massacres were indeed carried out but not in the way Western "humanitarian interventionists" suggested. The last was merely days ago, last Friday, when 43 people were reportedly killed and 235 were wounded as militiamen attacked peaceful protesters in Tripoli who were simply demanding Misrata militants leave their city.

These are the very people that Levy and his ilk spent numerous hours lobbying for. One of Levy’s greatest achievements in Libya was to muster international recognition of the National Transitional Council (NTC). France and other countries lead a campaign to promote the NTC as an alternative to Gaddafi’s state institution, which NATO had systematically destroyed.

In his New York Magazine interview, Levy was quoted as saying "sometimes you are inhabited by intuitions that are not clear to you". The statement was sourced in reference to the supposed epiphany the "philosopher" had on February 23, 2011, watching TV images of Gaddafi’s forces threatening to drown Benghazi with "rivers of blood".

Far from unclear intuitions, Levy’s agenda is that of the calculated politician-ideologue. Like a French version of the US neoconservatives who justified their country’s devastating war on Iraq with all sorts of moral, philosophical and other fraudulent reasoning. For them, it was first and foremost a war for Israel’s "security", with supposed other practical perks, little of which has actualized. Levy’s legacy is indeed loaded with unmistakable references to that same agenda.

Israel’s right-wingers are fascinated with Levy. The Post’s celebration of his global influence was summed up in this quote: "A French philosopher and one of the leaders of the Nouvelle Philosophie movement who said that Jews ought to provide a unique moral voice in the world."

But morality has nothing to do with it. The man’s philosophical exploits seem to exclusively target Muslims and their cultures. "The veil is an invitation to rape," he told the Jewish Chronicle in 2006.

Philosophy for Levy seems to be perfectly tailored to fit a political agenda promoting military interventions. His advocacy helped destroy Libya, but still didn’t stop him from writing a book on Libya’s "spring". He spoke of the veil as an invitation for rape, while saying nothing of the numerous cases of rape reported in Libya after the NATO war. In May 2011, he was one of few people who defended International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, when the latter was accused of raping a chambermaid in New York City. It was a "conspiracy" he said, in which the maid was taking part.

One could perhaps understand Levy’s hate for dictators and war criminals; after all, Gaddafi was no human rights champion. But Levy is no philosopher. A fundamental element of any genuine philosophy is moral consistency. Levy has none. A week after the Jerusalem Post celebrated Levy’s world influence, the Israeli daily Haaretz wrote of his support of the Israeli army.

"Bernard Henri Levy: I have never seen an army as democratic as the IDF [Israel Defense Forces]" was the title of an article on May 30, 2010, reporting on the "Democracy and Its Challenges" Conference in Tel Aviv. "I have never seen such a democratic army, which asks itself so many moral questions. There is something unusually vital about Israeli democracy."

Considering the wars and massacres conducted by the Israeli army against Gaza in 2008-9 and 2012, one cannot find appropriate phrases to describe Levy’s moral blindness and misguided philosophy. In fact, it is safe to argue that neither morality nor philosophy has much to do with Levy and his unending quest for war.

– Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is a media consultant, an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is: My Father was A Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press).