List Mentality.

In the 'Eppur Si Muove' episode of the TV series West Wing (Season 5, Episode 16), the fictional White House Press Secretary CJ Gregg says: "Haven't lists gone out with Joe McCarthy and Hula Hoops?"

Well I thought so too. Lists are, however, not consigned to history. On a recent Internet search for this article, written by Oren Ben-Dor for the biweekly political newsletter CounterPunch, I stumbled across this website with its "JEWISH S.H.I.'I.T.E. LIST". The list consists of Jewish individuals considered by the authors to be "Self-Hating and/or Intentionally Israel-Threatening Ediots".

Ben-Dor, a lecturer in political and legal philosophy at my Law School, is a very strong critic of Israel and is included on the list with, inter alia, this comment: "... as his Arab Nazi comrades bordering Israel slowly bleed Israel, Oren Ben-Dor sucks Israel dry."

In his latest CounterPunch article Ben-Dor criticizes, in my opinion rightly, the ideology of creating a state in which Jews have a preferential legal status.

Whether Ben-Dor is right or not, it is disturbing that anyone would take the time to compile and publish such a list. In ideology and methodology the list is very similar to the infamous Campus Watch project. The most disturbing aspects of such lists is, however, the mentality behind them, a mentality that consideres intimidation and the forcefull silencing of opponents to be good politics.