Quick Takes: News From Israel You May Have Missed

Israeli police say they are investigating the broadcast of Muslim prayers along with anti-Semitic diatribes from the Temple Mount, but police officials would not say if they would stop the daily broadcasts over Al Aksa Radio.

“We are aware of the situation now and we are investigating who might be responsible,” said Jerusalem police spokesman Shmulik Ben Ruby. Ben Ruby would not indicate whether or not the police would act to halt the Hamas programming. Police here are responsible for security on the Mount and theoretically must approve broadcasts from the site.

Security sources said the police in fact know who has been facilitating the Hamas broadcasts, which are coordinated with the Wakf, the Islamic custodians of the Temple Mount.

The Hamas radio station is heard throughout Palestinian cities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

“Our broadcast is a victory for the Al Aksa Mosque, which is suffering from Judaization efforts imposed by the Zionist government. Broadcasting daily radio is a way to bring Al Aksa to the Gaza Strip and challenge the siege imposed on us by the Zionist entity,” said Rami Kaoud, a manager at Al Aksa Radio.

For most of last week Israel barred all non-Muslims from ascending the Mount due to the observance of a Muslim holiday.

Israeli officials said they were surprised that President Bush turned down a request to address Israel’s Knesset during a visit here next month, his first trip to the Jewish state as U.S. president.

Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik, a ranking member of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s Kadima party, put in a request to Bush’s aides earlier this month for the president to address the Knesset, a longstanding tradition among visiting heads of state. Bush is due in Jerusalem as part of a follow-up to last month’s U.S.-led Annapolis summit.

But the White House turned down Itzik because, they said, he could not similarly address the Palestinian parliament due to the inclusion of the Hamas terror organization, according to Israel’s Channel 10 Television.

Political sources in Jerusalem, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of starting a diplomatic crisis, said Olmert’s office was “surprised” by the decline.

In an October 1994 address, President Bill Clinton hailed the Oslo Accords signed one year earlier. Jimmy Carter also addressed the Knesset during a state visit to Israel.

Security organizations affiliated with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah organization were “astonished” to discover that over the past two months Hamas has been setting up a military wing in a West Bank city long dominated by Fatah, Palestinian security sources told WorldNetDaily.

According to the security officials, a recent Fatah investigation discovered that Hamas attempted with some success to establish a base in Jenin. Hamas gunmen in the city were thought to be numbered in the dozens, but the PA found out that Hamas had purchased over 600 high-powered assault rifles and distributed them to fighters in the Jenin. They said Fatah raids had confiscated about 100 of these.

Fatah’s investigation also found that members of its own declared military wing, the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, were recruited by Hamas in Jenin with higher paychecks, the officials said.

The issue is significant because Hamas’s infiltration of Fatah in the Gaza Strip was thought to have led to the terror group’s takeover last summer.

The investigation also found that many Fatah Brigades gunmen who were granted amnesty last June have sold their weapons to Hamas. (The amnesty was conditioned on Brigades members handing in their weapons to the PA for a fee.)

Statistics released last week showed Muhammad to be the second most popular boys name in Britain, leading a spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees to declare that this “proves Islam is becoming the majority in the UK and will one day enter every house in Europe.”

In an interview with WND, Muhammad Abdel-Al said, “We see from this study…that Islam is on the rise and cannot be stopped no matter what your crusader governments do.” Abdel-Al is known for his fiery threats against Western targets, but he said statistical trends indicating Muslims are gaining a major foothold in the UK show there is no need for violence to spread Islam.

“In Europe there is no need for war because if people keep on joining Islam in these countries then Islam will become the majority, which I think is the process that is taking place now, so there will not be any necessity to have war with [non-Muslims],” he said.

Aaron Klein is Jerusalem bureau chief for WorldNetDaily.com. He appears throughout the week on leading U.S. radio programs and is the author of the recently published “Schmoozing with Terrorists.”