Lady Gaga has released a short video greeting for Israeli fans in advance of her Tel Aviv concert. “Shalom, this is Lady Gaga,” is her sensational greeting. “I’m so excited to perform my new tour in Tel Aviv. I’ll see you soon Israel! September 13th.”

http://youtu.be/4kI8Ms4i8SE

OK, so the nine-second clip isn’t notable for anything, really—except the mini-internet firestorm that erupted after its release. Arab fans expressed their disappointment, “labeling her as ‘disgusting and devilish’ and having ‘no sensitivities'” in light of the recent conflict in Gaza, Al Arabiya reports. (It’s now standard for international performers to be pressured to boycott Israel once they announce tour dates with stops in Tel Aviv.) Gaga did not respond to the allegations.

The conflict in Gaza led several big name acts to cancel summer gigs in Israel, including Neil Young, Lana Del Ray, and the Backstreet Boys.

With Gaga’s concert going ahead as scheduled, we have two pressing questions:

1) Will someone vomit on her on stage again?

2) Will she reprise her leather studded Star of David jacket from her first visit to Israel in 2009?

We’ll have the answers for you next week.

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Beyonce is the latest mega-star set to perform in Israel this summer.

Israel’s Channel 2 reported on Sunday that a concert was planned for June 15, though the venue hasn’t been confirmed and the date isn’t listed on Queen Bey’s website—yet. (Apparently Israeli production companies are bidding over who gets to put a ring on it right now.)

A petition calling on Beyonce to boycott Israel (now standard when a big international artist announces tour dates in Tel Aviv) is already circulating on Twitter. And like Lady Gaga, The Rolling Stones, and Justin Timberlake—who are all slated to perform in the holy land this summer—it seems unlikely she’ll change her plans.

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When actress Scarlett Johansson signed on as spokesperson for the Israeli company SodaStream in January, a P.R. battle of epic proportions erupted. Supporters of BDS pressured her to step down because the company has a factory in the West Bank, and Israel advocates urged her to stay on, citing the company’s favorable standing with its Palestinian employees and commitment to “doing the right thing and helping people.”

The upshot: Johansson stuck by SodaStream and ended her eight-year relationship with the charity Oxfam, which opposes trade from Israeli settlements.

Now the actress has spoken out in support of SodaStream, highlighting their environmental credentials and assiduously steering clear of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

“I’m not an expert on the history of this conflict, and I’ve never professed to be. But it is a company that I believe in, that I think has the ability to make a huge difference, environmentally. [SodaStream’s CEO] Daniel Birnbaum has said many times that this factory is one he inherited, and that he doesn’t want to fire people – the majority of those people being Palestinian.”

Johansson has been quietly but firmly reiterating this stance since the controversy first erupted in January, but this is her most lengthy statement yet. In the lead-up to her appearance in SodaStream’s Super Bowl commercial, she told the Huffington Post that the company was “building a bridge to peace between Israel and Palestine.” And in an interview with Dazed Magazine in February, she alluded to her discomfort with her default position a “role model,” saying she “never wanted to step into those shoes.”

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Gird your loins, Israel: Lady Gaga is coming.

Last week, Israeli TV show “Good Evening with Guy Pines” announced that the mega-star would perform at Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park on September 13, as part of her ARTPOP tour. Gaga confirmed it herself on Friday with this exuberantly illustrated tweet:

Lady Gaga will bring the ARTPOP Ball Tour to the Middle East with the first date in Tel Aviv (Israel) on September 13 pic.twitter.com/gSGDOp7cgH

— Lady Gaga (@ladygagaloo) February 21, 2014

This will be Lady Gaga’s second performance in Israel. When she first visited in 2009, she “felt so much love” that she wore a studded Star of David leather jacket to her press conference (and then again in Heathrow Airport—sans pants, natch).

Other big acts set to tour Israel in 2014: the Pixies, Soundgarden, and (TBC) the Rolling Stones.

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As an American Studies major, the news of the American Studies Association’s boycott of Israel hit a bit close to home. How unsettling to think that the leaders of the school of thought I pursued for four years have the audacity to publicly denounce Israel; to take such a resolute and one-sided stance.

Reportedly, at least 90 universities, including Penn State Harrisburg, Brandeis, and GW, have rejected the American Studies Association membership vote in favor of an academic boycott of Israel.

In a statement issued today, The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations said:

“This is now a clarion call to reject the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and assure that American campuses are not subverted for extremist political ends,” said the statement signed by Robert Sugarman and Malcolm Hoenlein, the chairman and executive vice chairman, respectively, of the group.

The ASA is the largest American academic organization yet to support an anti-Israel boycott, and over 1,200 ASA members voted on the boycott proposal, with about two-thirds endorsing the idea.

The association has stressed that the boycott doesn’t prevent its members from researching or working with Israeli scholars, but discredits “formal collaborations with Israeli academics institutions, or with scholars who are expressly serving representatives or ambassadors of those institutions (such as deans, rectors, presidents and others), or on behalf of the Israeli government.”

Michael S. Roth, president of Wesleyan University, made a great point in his statement against the boycott. He wrote in the LA Times that not one other group in history has been wholly condemned by the ASA. Whether or not you agree with Israel’s policies, why single them out in the name of academics?

“Not in North Korea, not in Russia or Zimbabwe or China — one has to start with Israel,” Roth wrote. “Really?”

Really.

(Photo by Getty)

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