Ban Lady Gaga, Not Jewish Settlements

The Obama administration is making a big stink about Israeli settlements on the West Bank, but you know what causes a lot more radical anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world? Lady Gaga, argues Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal . Or, if you prefer, Madonna or Marilyn Monroe, or any woman Sayyid Qutb, intellectual godfather of al-Qaeda, would call “the American Temptress.” The real reason al-Qaeda hates America has much to do with Qutb’s 1951 essay on the country's “primitive” values.

Qutb complained about American women's purported promiscuity and the country's savage, immoral music—jazz, in that pre-Elvis era. Radical Islam has singled out many opponents since, but it’s American culture that really fuels their hatred. “If the administration's aim is to appease our enemies, it will get more mileage out of banning Lady Gaga than by applying the screws on Israel,” concludes Stephens. “It should go without saying that it ought to do neither.” (More Sayyid Qutb stories.)