The Israeli rocket strikes on Mount Qasioun last night produced an almost immediate explosion of Twitter commentary, despite the wee hours when the action took place. Those opposed to the Syrian opposition – whether for fear of the Jihadists or Syria falling into the hands of a Saudi-Israeli-US axis – were sort of triumphant at seeing the rebels exposed on the same battlefield as the Israelis, while there was perhaps some embarrassment dressed up as bravura from the other side. Either way, the massacred civilians of Banias have fallen off the news cycle, not that global media attention has really made any difference to anything, despite the intense glare directed at this most horrific of conflicts.* [...]

The destruction of a synagogue in Damascus is the latest manifestation of a fundamental, and troubling, shift going on in the Middle East. The Jobar Synagogue, thought to be 2,000 years old, was looted and burned to the ground. Both the government and the Islamist-dominated rebels are denying they were behind it, but either way the incident appears to have been a deliberate act. It’s not the first time historical sites have been damaged in the suicidal violence of the Syrian civil war, nor the first time that minorities have been targetted. [...]

With the fall of Hosni Mubarak, victory in legislative elections and the presidential vote, and now the approval via referendum of a new constitution, Islamists have begun the work of putting their renaissance project into practice.

Unlike Salafism, which dreams of a recreation of the pre-colonial moment, political Islam has aimed more to repatch together the Islamic state but in an unambiguously modern, post-colonial context. The Brotherhood does not aim to return clerics to man a reestablished classical Sharia court system, rather it seeks to distribute the dominion of Sharia via parliament, legislation and an advisory role for clerics via Al-Azhar. Laymen play a key role in the process of Islamicization that they would not have had before the irruption of Western hegemony and modernity – something alien, for example, to Wahhabi Salafism which simply recognizes the sovereign powers of the temporal ruler in return for the clerics’ advisory role in policy and control of courts, mosques, education and their own coercive force (‘the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice’). [...]

(Reuters) – Tens of thousands of Moroccans took part in the funeral of the leader of the North African state’s biggest opposition group on Friday, in a sign of the huge support commanded by Islamists opposed to the monarchy. [...]

(Reuters) – The leader of Morocco’s main opposition group al-Adl Wal Ihsane died on Thursday, raising questions over the future of an Islamist group that played a central role in Arab Spring protests last year.

Abdessalam Yassine formed the group 1981. It is banned from formal politics but is believed by analysts and diplomats to be the only opposition organization capable of mass mobilization in the North African state. [...]

(Reuters) – A Moroccan anti-government protestor who dressed up as King Mohammed has been arrested and accused of possessing drugs, the man’s lawyer and human rights activists said on Thursday. [...]

(Reuters) – Reforms that took the wind out of Arab Spring protests in Morocco last year have proven hollow and real power still lies with King Mohammed and his advisors, the north African country’s main opposition group said. [...]

Dec 5 (Reuters) – Almost every day without fail, hundreds of unemployed graduates storm through downtown Rabat calling for the government to fall. La st month, they went a step further, crossing a red line by targeting their anger at the royal family’s spending.

“Shame on you, you have squandered the budget!” a small group of several dozen chanted during one march a few days before parliament voted on the first draft of next year’s budget. [...]

(Reuters) – In a remote town in Tunisia’s interior, protesters angry over joblessness and harsh police tactics call for the downfall of new Islamist rulers, echoing the revolt that ignited the Arab Spring two years ago. [...]