There probably should be — or at least a fatwa against people who use Facebook as an alternative to email, thus adding another thing to check — but the report going around about al-Azhar issuing a fatwa against Facebook does not appear to be true. Marc Lynch has done the public service of debunking the story, so take heed.

Autopsie des élections présidentielles iraniennes, ou tous les chemins mènent à Qom « Ibn Kafka's obiter dicta – divagations d'un juriste marocain en liberté surveillée | Ibn Kafka has written a post on the Iranian elections that I wanted to write but never had time to. Perhaps I should just translate his from the French...
Deep Purple, le temple de Jupiter... et le Hezbollah - Proche-Orient - Le Monde.fr | "Smoke on the water" in Baalbek. How cool is that?
Matthew Yglesias » Dershowitz: Palestinians ‘Played A Significant Role In The Holocaust’ | Alan Dershowitz: what a lying cunt.
EGYPT: Fatwa issued against secular author | Babylon & Beyond | Los Angeles Times | Official fatwa against secular author Sayyid Qemni.
Algeria, POLISARIO and the Mauritanian election « Maghreb Politics Review | Alle on Mauritania's sahrawi dimension.
MIDEAST: Fatah's Leadership Crisis Deepens - IPS ipsnews.net | Helena Cobban on Fatah.

Automatically posted links for December 12th through December 18th:

• Democracy Digest - Newsletter on democracy developments in Arab world and elsewhere, current issue has article on MB
• BBC World Service | 'Free to Speak' Events - Is new media the only truly independent media in the Arab world today?
• GWOT: Egypt - Negar Azimi on Egypt and the "Global War On Terror"
• Islamist calls for boycott of Egypt billionaire - "An Islamist shaikh on Monday called for a boycott of the companies of telecommunications billionaire Naguib Sawiris for speaking out against the influence of Islam on public life in Egypt."
• YEARENDER: In Egypt, unrest will spill over into 2008 - corrected : Middle East World - In the last few months of 2007, Egypt has experienced a series of massive workers strikes, motivated by none other than poor standards of living and lack of privileges, foreboding the beginning of a possible "uprising" by Egypt's poor.
• Incumbent Regimes and the ?King?s Dilemma? in the Arab World: Promise and Threat of Managed Reform - Carnegie report says political stagnation seen as more likely outcome if regimes not serious about reform
• Arab Reform Bulletin: December 2007 - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Beyond the Façade: Political Reform in the Arab World - New book by Carnegie Endowment
• Le Monde.fr : Le 10 était parfait pour le colonel Kadhafi - On Qadhafi's visit to Paris coinciding with international human rights day
• Anthropologists on the Front Lines - TIME - TIME looks at debates in academic community about Human Terrain Teams
• The Press Association: Army chief among Beirut blast dead - Michel Suleiman successor killed