I think Levy means well, but I vaguely remember a story he wrote about Israel’s war in Lebanon two summers ago that went so horribly awry. In it, he made the astonishing claim that Israel would be victorious, because its defense minister was so visibly distraught and vexed by the human lives involved; I personally thought it looked like Peretz was horribly unsuited to his position as a wartime defense minister, and I think events bore that out. It seemed almost like an unintended parody of the way liberals see violence and war as only justified if it is paired with copious amounts of self-doubt and angst. Levy probably would be fine in his proper element–a Paris salon philosophizing–but in hardheaded questions of state, dudes like him really should be ignored.