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In this mailing:
* Uzay Bulut: Turkey: Missing Children from Earthquakes Risk Human Trafficking, Organ Harvesting, Sexual Abuse
* Jonathan S. Tobin: Why Did the Biden Administration Oppose Israeli Judicial Reform?


** Turkey: Missing Children from Earthquakes Risk Human Trafficking, Organ Harvesting, Sexual Abuse ([link removed])
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by Uzay Bulut • March 29, 2023 at 5:00 am
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* The newspaper Cumhuriyet reported on February 23 that a doctor from Ankara, who has been volunteering to help find missing children since the first day of the earthquake, claimed that the number of missing children was approaching 1,000.
* The fatwa stated that it is not right to treat adopted children like one's own children and that "accordingly, the relationship between the adopter and the adopted child does not create a barrier to marriage."
* "[I]t is reported that unaccompanied children are not handed over to authorized state institutions, but to people who say that the children are relatives, tariqats [radical Islamist groups] or organ mafia." — Association of Children and Women First, once.org.tr, February 17, 2023.
* "The Ministry of Family and Social Policies must first determine the identity of the children.... It is unacceptable to deliver these children to third parties, individuals, institutions, or associations other than the Ministry. Adoption and foster family institutions should also be done lawfully in line with the Ministry's rigorous and meticulous investigations." — Association of Children and Women First, once.org.tr, February 17, 2023.
* "The basic rule in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is 'follow the best interests of the child.'" — Hediye Gökçe Baykal, attorney at the Association of Children and Women First, to Gatestone, March 9, 2023.

As a result of the February earthquakes in Turkey, many children have been orphaned. These children are extremely vulnerable: they are at risk of human trafficking, organ harvesting and sexual abuse -- and Islamist indoctrination. Pictured: A child in a tent camp set up for displaced people, following the recent earthquakes, in Adiyaman, Turkey on March 25, 2023. (Photo by Bulent Kilic/AFP via Getty Images)

When multiple earthquakes first struck Turkey on February 6, the death toll, according to the Turkish government after a month, reached 48,448. Unofficial sources estimate that the real number is much higher. Around 200,000 people were still waiting to be rescued from under buildings that had collapsed, according to a prediction from early February by geophysical engineer Professor Ovgun Ahmet Ercan.

The death toll was reportedly high not only because of corruption in the construction sector but also because of the government's lack of timely aid to survivors. The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan failed to send rescue aid promptly to the earthquake-stricken area. Survivors were ignored for days. After the first earthquake, even access to Twitter was restricted for over 9 hours. More than a month later, survivors are still saying that they have not received enough help. Millions are homeless, in tents, struggling to survive.

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** Why Did the Biden Administration Oppose Israeli Judicial Reform? ([link removed])
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by Jonathan S. Tobin • March 29, 2023 at 4:00 am
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* Ignore Washington's hypocritical talk about protecting democracy. They want a weak government that won't make trouble when it comes to Iran, and they won't stop until they get one.
* Washington made no secret of its efforts to directly intervene in a domestic Israeli dispute....
* The people who jammed the streets... see the maintenance of an unaccountable court with virtually unlimited power as the only way to maintain the Israeli left's political power even when they lose elections....
* Washington is... determined... to oust a democratically elected government by any means possible.
* What the White House and State Department want is more pliable Israeli Prime Minister, who will keep quiet about the nuclear threat from Iran, and who can be intimidated into not acting too forestall that deadly threat to Israel's existence.
* As for behaving like a dictator, Biden's predilection for governing by executive order... even when his diktats are obviously contrary to the constitution or existing laws makes anything Netanyahu might attempt look like child's play.
* [Biden's] administration apparently thinks that when Israel's Supreme Court strikes down Netanyahu's efforts to govern – on the basis of no law, and only on the judges, subjective ideas about what is "reasonable" – it's a great idea.
* [E]stablishment Jewish groups... joined the liberal groups in praising Netanyahu's surrender to the mob and then had the chutzpah to laud the protesters, who sought to sabotage the country to get their way without even any attempt at balance by treating supporters of the government and reform, who clearly outnumbered the critics at the ballot box last November, as equally praiseworthy.
* [T]hey also understand that the hyperbolic claims that Netanyahu and advocates of judicial reform seek to impose a dictatorship or a Torah state is pure fiction.
* What Biden and his supporters want in Jerusalem isn't so much an all-powerful Supreme Court... but anything that can help oust the prime minister.
* The [Biden] administration is now willing to tolerate Iran having nuclear weapons as long as they are not going to publicly flaunt them.
* This attitude isn't just unacceptable to all of Israel's major political parties. It constitutes a grave threat to the security of the Jewish state that no Israeli prime minister could reasonably be expected to tolerate.
* The brazen nature of Biden's attack on Netanyahu... speaks volumes about how much the administration wants an Israeli government that won't cause trouble over Iran.

Ignore Washington's hypocritical talk about protecting democracy. They want a weak Israeli government that won't make trouble when it comes to Iran, and they won't stop until they get one. Pictured: Israeli police try to stop anti-government protesters from blocking the main highway in Tel Aviv on March 23, 2023. (Photo by Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images)

It didn't play a decisive role in the drama that unfolded in Israel as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was forced to call a halt to his efforts to enact judicial reform. But the Biden administration's willingness to involve itself in the push to oppose the measure was remarkable for two reasons.

The first is that, as The New York Times noted, Washington made no secret of its efforts to directly intervene in a domestic Israeli dispute in a manner that was almost unprecedented. The second was that the standard by which the administration seems ready to judge its Israeli counterpart is entirely hypocritical and would, if applied to Biden, categorize him as just as much of an "authoritarian" as Netanyahu. Or at least it would if those scurrilous accusations that have been hurled against the Likud-led government by its opponents—and dutifully mimicked by the international media, as well as many Democrats and American Jewish organizations—weren't entirely false.

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