I have no interest in pretending that a Wall Street Journal op-ed about Israel and the U.S. contains the slightest bit of intellectual honesty or rigor, but this Abu Muqawama post on — yes — Lady Gaga and the Israeli-Arab conflict takes a valuable detour into the salacious world of Arabic-language pop-tart-ery. When I was last in Iraqi Kurdistan I considered it a journalistic obligation to watch Hotbird-satellite-borne Haifa Wehbe videos in my hotel room, in order to thoroughly immerse myself in regional culture, and I treated this obligation with the professional solemnity and rigor it deserved. Suffice it to say no one in the Middle East will be shocked by Gaga.