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Join us as we tackle the intricate issues surrounding the Middle East peace process and the unlikely allies forming in a quest for stability. With Hamas, Israel, and Arab nations at a pivotal crossroads, this episode uncovers the key elements of proposed deals and the challenges posed by historic distrust. We also highlight the ongoing persecution of Christians globally and its minimal media coverage, advocating for amplified awareness and support.
SPEAKER 03 :
Bibi Netanyahu arrives in Washington, D.C. for our meeting with President Trump that could change everything.
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Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Seculo. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 03 :
Welcome to Sekulow. It’s another Monday, Will. We’re back here. Will Haines, right here. Right here. I heard someone say, you don’t introduce yourselves enough. You do it every day. But then you don’t say, I am Will. Oh, well, there’s only two of us here. Today it’s just the two of us. Later on won’t be, though. That’s right. Is it CeCe’s joining us? CeCe’s joining us in a few segments. Yeah, so CeCe will be joining us in a few segments. You want to stay tuned for that. Historic morning as Bibi Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, arrives in Washington, D.C. for what could be, what could be what they’re at least teasing out. could be the next step towards a final step of a peace agreement in the Middle East between Israel and what will become some form of Palestinian government. Now, there is a laundry list of demands that would have to be made. I will be honest, as I was last week when they started to leak out this list, though they seem very hopeful and more hopeful, I have to say, than I have heard the Trump administration or even the state of Israel say. and maybe because they know they need to get something done, that these deal points will be made. And obviously it does consist of Hamas being completely removed from power and a temporary government being put in place, as well as all the hostages being released. We have the whole list. I guess we can walk through it. I think we should do that in the next segment. Okay, in the next segment, we’ll walk through all the lists. But how do you feel about this? How do you feel about potentially? I think a lot of us are ready for the war to be over. Obviously, no one wants war to continue on. But you have to make sure that not only are the demands met, but that it’s sustainable. And I think that is the big concern, is we have had moments of momentary peace. We also are in the middle, once again, as October 7th is just about a week away. Remember, we are in the middle of the Jewish High Holy Days. So we just got done with Rosh Hashanah, headed towards Yom Kippur in the next two days. So you know what? This is another… very, um, what could be tense time in Israel because we are headed towards that big anniversary, much like nine 11 was for here specifically those first maybe 10 years after October 7th, uh, is only a week away at this point. So what does it look like? Could this be heading towards the end of the war? I sure hope so for a lot of us, but I do hope that it ends with Israel being successful in the mission that they set out to be, um, set out to accomplish and don’t just decide, uh, to pack it in. However, I understand the situation at hand. I actually do trust Bibi Netanyahu and President Trump and the other Arab nations who are talking about coming together in a coalition to really settle things down in the area and look outside of Gaza, outside of Hamas, there was a pretty quiet Middle East for quite a number of years. A lot of these countries are moving forward, even if it’s not as forward as we would like. Even in Saudi Arabia, you got to think of how much they’ve changed in the last decade. We’ve seen that in a lot of these other Middle Eastern countries where they want to work with Israel. They want the tourism dollars. And finally, you’re saying that, you know, maybe it had to come to this, but money had to drive all of this for a while.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, and when you look at what’s coming out in some of these statements, you’re hearing the Arab countries have told the U.S. they think Hamas will be ready to sign the proposal. You also see that Prime Minister Netanyahu is meeting with President Trump in the White House right now. Israel had not officially signed off on this, but the reports are that they are, quote, inching closer to signing on to this. The enthusiasm, as you mentioned, from President Trump and J.D. Vance and other American leaders over the weekend was even last week. during the UN General Assembly saying, I think we’re going to have a deal, it felt like a lot of excitement on their end. Like, they had this, and this is going to happen. And for many of us, we feel like we’ve heard this before. How many times are you going to tell us we got a deal? And at the end of the day also, even if… Hamas says they’re going to sign it. Unlike other people, it’s not like you got to get to the signing table and officially be signed off. With Hamas, you actually have to get to implementation. But we’ll go through what’s in this. And honestly, if this is pulled off, one of the biggest deals I think that’s ever happened in modern history.
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We’ll go through that. Not only does it have to be signed off on, it has to be implemented. And that is going to be time. Give us a call at 1-800-684-3110. Of course, support Israel by supporting us at ACLJ.org. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Secula. Will H. joining me in studio as well. We’re going to take some phone calls coming up this hour, so give us a call right now at 1-800-684-3110. Again, this is President Trump. If you missed it, he’s currently meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. Obviously a very controversial moment for a lot of people, not necessarily for us, but for those who’ve been following this war. There they are. greeting each other in the White House. If you’re watching right now, you’re seeing that, of course. You can watch our show, by the way, if you’re just listening, on YouTube, on ACLJ.org, however you get your podcasts. You can watch a video version of this as well, so you can see it, kind of full television style. But… This is happening. Netanyahu is meeting with President Trump. President Trump saying he believes we have a deal. We’re very close to a deal with Israel and with I guess what would be considered Hamas or what the remnants are of Hamas. And I think that is maybe one of the takeaways. Is it part of this deal? includes amnesty for hamas members who disavow violence and want to stay in gaza and have safe passage out of the enclave for hamas members who don’t uh want to commit or who don’t commit to non-violence so they’re saying if you’re a member of hamas right now which again uh a lot of these are now kind of lower level people people that got you know pushed into upper level because of you know failed upward yeah exactly um They may not be committed to the cause and saying, you know what? If we can get out of this, I’m happy to get out of it. So that’s a weird one that’s in there. But you know what? If it ends the war, I get why President Trump wants to do this. He holds some different views than maybe some people in Israel and some people here. But you know what? If it’s one of the things you have to concede, I’m willing to at least consider it. But let’s go through some of the principles of the deal. Well, I know you got the list in front. Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
we’ve got a release of all remaining hostages within 48 hours of a ceasefire and a permanent ceasefire that goes along with that that would be a very initial sign of whether or not there’s good faith on both sides that this is going to get done yeah because that has not that has been one of the things many times that gets there and then of course there’s been
SPEAKER 03 :
Sadly, I mean, there’s been disgusting, the bait and switches of the bodies. There’s been a lot of things that have happened. You gotta always look back at some of the barbaric nature of this whole thing. Remember there was a time where the family, including the kids, sit back and when they checked the caskets that were paraded through town I find out that those were not the correct bodies that were in them for a while.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s right and so a lot of these first ones are just the short term ending this conflict but then the second half of the proposal are things that you look forward to in the way to reshape this region so there’s a release of a lot of prisoners a lot of times these happen with these negotiations post-war plan that includes a governing mechanism in Gaza without Hamas. This will include an international and Arab board with a Palestinian Authority representative and a technocratic government of unaffiliated Palestinians in Gaza. I don’t know where they’re going to find those unaffiliated Palestinians because many people in Gaza are Hamas by de facto situation there, but… Once again, this is a very lofty goal, a security force that would include Palestinians, but also soldiers from Arab and Muslim countries, a gradual withdrawal of Israel from all of Gaza Strip, funding from Arab and Muslim countries. So this isn’t the United States paying for this. This is partners in the region that want this, that have been pushing for this, that have backed the Palestinians for a long time.
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Other Arab countries.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right. So you think Saudi Arabia, you think Qatar, these countries that have put their support behind the Palestinian cause, so to speak. They’re basically saying, put your money where your mouth is and form a new administration, fund it. And that helps with the reconstruction and development of Gaza. There will be some involvement of the Palestinian Authority in the new governing mechanism in Gaza. What is the Palestinian Authority at this point? Well, I mean, it runs the West Bank. It’s their governing body.
SPEAKER 03 :
They would then go into Gaza and say, which Palestinian Authority for a while was in Gaza.
SPEAKER 05 :
And then when Israel completely occupied Gaza, then withdrew over 20 years ago, they had elections. They had a choice in Gaza between the Palestinian Authority and and Hamas and the people of Gaza chose Hamas in that situation so I think just because of maybe continuity they would have some Palestinian authority representatives they won’t be the full government it does give a little bit more credibility than I’m comfortable with to the PA at this point because they are not the good guys my concern with a lot of these points is that it gives a lot of credibility to people that I don’t think have earned it Then you get to the process of disarming Hamas and demilitarizing Gaza, which includes destroying all remaining heavy weapons and tunnels. Amnesty, which you already mentioned.
SPEAKER 03 :
So in that one, let’s just go back to that. The process of disarming Hamas and demilitarizing Gaza, which includes destroying remaining heavy weapons. That’s essentially saying we’re going to level this. I mean, that’s what it kind of sounds like.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, and that’s where it goes back to the Muslim countries and Arab countries surrounding would pay for reconstruction and redevelopment. So yeah, you’re going to have to wipe it clean of the buildings and the infrastructure because so much of that, the hospitals, the mosques, the schools are all connected underground by terror tunnels.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, so when you see that, we got to remember again what some of these points actually mean. And that’s why maybe I’m a little… A little less hopeful than President Trump is sounding. Right. But again, I don’t want to be the person who’s going to, you know, be sad on this and say this can’t happen. It’s not going to happen. But as you said, if they weren’t able to accomplish this, it would be historic. All right, keep going. All right.
SPEAKER 05 :
Then we’ve got the no annexation of the West Bank or occupation of parts of Gaza by Israel. An Israeli commitment to not attack Qatar again in the future, which we saw where they took out Hamas leadership there just about two weeks ago. And then this final one, a future credible path for Palestinian statehood after the Palestinian Authority undergoes significant reforms. So once again. It’s still giving a lot of credibility, elevation to the Palestinian Authority, which is a failed leadership. Abu Mazen, which is the terrorist name of Mahmoud Abbas, who is the leader, who has not had an election in decades, a billionaire. because of all of the money he has scraped from foreign aid that goes to his country, not country rather, to his political party that governs the West Bank. Not a good guy. And at the same time, I assume those reforms would mean restructuring of the government, the mechanisms, but this gives a lot of, it puts a lot of eggs in the Palestinian Authority basket.
SPEAKER 03 :
It really does. I mean, that’s the thing is I don’t want to be someone who is coming in and saying this is, you know, Or maybe it shouldn’t happen. I don’t know. I’m not involved directly in what’s going on in Israel. I’m not there. Trust me, I’ve been wanting to get back for a number of years now. And it breaks my heart that I haven’t been able to go back. But I’m also concerned about the big ramifications of this. We’ve seen when Israel has given too much in previous times and how inevitably it leads to something like October 7th, where it leads to a big terrorist attack of their people. Because again, it is very much, as much as there are a lot of Western Muslims, Western people who are not these people, There is still a very anti-Israel sentiment that is within the DNA of Gaza. And some of it is they’ve been bred to believe this. They’ve been told this in their schools. It’s hard to separate that. I mean, it really is. So just an on-paper agreement? is not as cut and dry as it seems. And that’s my big concern. I know that there are probably people like Jeff Balaban, who I’m sure we’ll hear from who are not going to be happy with a lot of the talking points on here. Now, again, I will point to a president Trump and go, I understand he wants to end the war and maybe has a different kind of vested interest in Israel than, uh, maybe I do. Maybe then the Jewish people do. Maybe then Zionist culture does. Um, Maybe you could look at Benjamin Netanyahu saying, okay, he understands there’s also a big changing tide in America that is turning against Israel, including on the right. And he actually said that, he called it the woke Reich the other day, as you’re talking about that there’s not much difference between what you hear from the woke left and what he was calling the woke Reich, which was people that are spewing a lot of hatred towards not just Israel, And I think that is where things get wrong. There are commentators, and I could probably go through and name them, who actually are critical of Israel, but are not spending their time stirring up Jewish hatred and propaganda.
SPEAKER 05 :
But then there’s plenty that are. Right. And ones that are unfortunately very well known, very out there. We’ve criticized many of their stuff on here before. But once again, I think also that lie, that anti-Semitic trope that gets drug from history into modern day that, you know, the Jews control everything, including the American government. If that were the case… I’m going to clip that just to be safe. Thanks, I appreciate that. If that were the case, President Trump would never propose something like this. Yeah, it would never get signed. This is not something that Bibi Netanyahu was begging for. This is not the type of plan that the government of Israel was hoping for. There’s a lot here that is hopeful that for something to end, historically, that’s where all the concerns are. Is this even a possible thing to happen? I don’t… Yes, Hamas and Israel could agree to this. I don’t know how this is ever implemented in a real way.
SPEAKER 03 :
In a way that’s not very risky. Very risky for Israel, very risky for people of whatever, be that future Palestinian state, maybe. I see the comments coming in. I at least am thrilled to hear that a lot of you still are supporting Israel in some way or fashion, because I was sure maybe you’d just be like, hey, let’s get this done. Look, there are some comments that come in, obviously, on both sides here. There’s a lot of people who are not really happy with this. I want you to call in either way. 1-800-684-3110. That’s 1-800-684-3110. We’re also going to talk about the persecution of Christians around the world and how it’s finally starting to bubble up in major media. We saw some of that over the weekend. So stay tuned for that. CeCe Heil, Senior Attorney here at the ACLJ is going to be joining us in the next segment. But right now. I encourage you to support the work of the ACLJ. We’ve got our offices in Jerusalem. They need your support right now. If you feel moved, feel like you need support what they’re doing, this is the time to do it. Go to ACLJ.org. All donations go into the same and then it’s spread out. So do ACLJ.org. We’re going to support our offices here or around the world. Welcome back to Sekulow. Phone lines are completely jammed. We’re going to do our best to get to as many of those as we can, specifically in the back half hour, but keep trying, keep calling. We’ll do our best to get to all of them we can. CeCe Hiles joining us in studio, senior attorney here at the ACLJ. I did want to pivot a little bit. We’re going to continue talking about Israel, and CeCe’s been to Israel more recently than any of us here, so she can comment as well as we are seeing this maybe historic moment. uh as bb net yahoo now i feel like you could have probably played this back uh episodes of this show over the last year and heard a very similar uh thing including talking points including the big deal points now these again i think they’re controversial i think when i see the comments coming in a lot of you are not thrilled with some of these plans I do think we need to lean a little bit on President Trump and lean a little bit on Bibi Netanyahu that they are doing what’s best for their people. And hopefully that is the case. But it is a bit concerning, some of them, for sure. I understand that. We’re going to address those. I did also want to talk… But some of the work of the ACLJ is we have been working on issues involving the persecution of Christians throughout the world, including in Nigeria and other places for many years, for decades now. It’s been part of really the DNA of the ACLJ. It’s been our work internationally. As we know, Christian persecution. Now, look, we saw what happened over the weekend. in the LDS church where you saw right here in our country, we saw many people murdered, the church burnt down, all these horrible things that happened to Christians. So I don’t want, now I have to say that it feels like a rising tide that’s happening right now. But I think what we can do also is turn to what’s happening in other countries and go, we’re not there yet and we gotta make sure we don’t get there. as Americans. We’ve got to make sure that we don’t start treating religious institutions the way that happens in other parts of the world. And it’s starting to bubble up on some mainstream news where you’re actually hearing people talk about it. This is a clip I want to play for you. This is from Bill Maher, real time with Bill Maher. This just happened. He had Nancy Mace on. Again, you may go, Logan, you’re playing Bill Maher. Now, of course, we know Bill Maher has, he said he hasn’t moved politically, but the left has moved significantly from him. He has been someone that’s been fairly critical of of a lot of, especially the, he’s been very critical on people who are supporting the Palestinian situation, the Hamas situation over Israel. He’s very pro-Israel. But he also wants to make sure people are actually noticing what’s happening around the world in terms of persecution of people of faith. Let’s hear from Bill Maher. Can’t believe I’m saying that. Real time with Bill Maher from just over the weekend.
SPEAKER 02 :
that this issue has not gotten on people’s radar right no one’s talking about it it’s pretty amazing if if you don’t know what’s going on in nigeria your media sources you’re you’re you are in a bubble not and again i’m not a christian but they are systematically killing the christians in nigeria they’ve killed over a hundred thousand since 2009 they’ve burned 18 000 churches this is so much more these are their islamists this is so much more of a genocide attempt than what is going on in Gaza. They are literally attempting to wipe out the Christian population of an entire country. Where are the kids protesting this?
SPEAKER 08 :
Thank you. Thank you. No one will talk about it, so thank you. Absolutely. It’s Africa, that’s why. No one’s talking about it, and they should be. You can’t read about it on mainstream media. It’s sad, so thank you for bringing that up.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, because the Jews aren’t involved. That’s why. It’s the Christians and the Muslims. Who cares? It’s just…
SPEAKER 05 :
CC, this is an issue that we’ve talked about here for a long time. If you’ve watched this show for a long time, you’ve heard us bring this up. We fought to get Nigeria listed as a country of particular concern under the first Trump administration. And one of the first acts of Secretary of State Blinken under the Biden administration was to take them off that list. But it was because of this persecution. And as you know, you’re hearing truth from Bill Maher on this, not someone who’s normally like rah-rah for standing up for Christians, but it’s the truth and you’re not hearing about it. And just talk a little bit about that and the work that we do to raise this.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, and first I’m going to say you’re hearing about it if you listen to the ACLJ. You’re hearing about it if you go to our website. You’re hearing about it if you listen to this radio show because we have talked about it since he says, you know, kind of started in 2009 escalating. And that’s true because since 2009, 12 million Christians have been displaced. but we talk about this constantly. I am at the UN constantly talking about Nigeria because as far as Christian persecution goes, more Christians are killed for their faith in Nigeria than all of the other countries combined. And in fact, This year, in 2025, the first 220 days, there have been over 7,000 Christians killed for their faith. That is 32. That’s an average of 32 Christians killed per day. And there’s over 8,000 people that have been abducted. That’s an average of 35 people a day abducted. Now, you think, just like they said, if there are 32 Christians being killed every single day because of their faith, you’d think we’d hear about that. Again, ACLJ talks about it all the time. We point to it all the time. But I’m thrilled that we do now have some mainstream media and people that are paying attention to this because this is a huge, huge concern and it needs to be fixed and you’re exactly right will we were on it because Nigeria under the last Trump administration was a country of particular concern and that is from the State Department it’s a designation from the State Department and it’s specifically for religious freedom violations so if there should be any country in the world that’s a CPC It should be Nigeria. And then there are punishments that come along with that. That’s why it’s critical that it is a CPC. And again, we won’t stop talking about this. And I’m thrilled that other media outlets are picking it up.
SPEAKER 03 :
It’s one of the things is completely independent media here at the ACLJ. What we do here on our media side is we are able to bring up stories that are not going to get the attention of the mainstream media. But one of the goals is obviously to break through to the mainstream media. is to make sure that our clients, that anything we’re supporting, makes it through. It’s not just on here. We can be the constant voice yelling, but we understand we are going to be a smaller percentage of people that maybe get their news from some of these mainstream outlets. However, that’s growing, that’s shifting, that’s changing, which is great. However, we couldn’t do that without your support because we’re able to do this. We’re able to go to court. We’re able to go to the UN. We’re able to do all of these things, take action as well as report. A lot of people can’t do that. So I want to encourage you, of course, to support the work of the ACLJ while you’re at it. But it’s true. We all live in sort of little bubbles. I send Will all the time because I’m very connected in sort of the, I guess you’d say the Israel Zionist side of this. I send Will news stories all the time where he’s like, this wasn’t even on my feed. It’s like, yeah, it’s not necessarily that you’re doing anything to keep it off your feed. It’s just, you have to get so plugged into such a niche audience. that sometimes these things that are big stories or are big portions of stories aren’t reported.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, even that point that there was that madman that ran into a wedding at a country club in Connecticut or New Hampshire, one of the two, and had a shooting. My feed was only headlines of mass shooting at wedding in New Hampshire. Yeah. Nowhere in the headlines that I was being fed was it that the gunman cried, free Palestine, before committing his murders. Right. Once again, the narrative changing before you, you are being manipulated.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, you have to be really careful.
SPEAKER 05 :
And you’re being manipulated by a lot of people on the right right now when it comes to Israel.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, absolutely. I think you’ve got to make sure you’re staying tuned in. Now, I’m very happy to report that it looks like a lot of our people are awake to it. You know what I think is good is that you’re seeing a lot of the people who have been the most trusted sources. for decades now, including even your senators. Those are the ones whose voices are loud and have been calling out some of this. And at least you are trusting some of these voices you’ve trusted for years. Now, that being said, there obviously is not. It’s the most I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. where the conservative audience, if you will, has not been supportive of Israel until this last couple months. But you know what? Maybe today things change as President Trump meets with Benjamin Netanyahu. Hey, we get back. We got a second half hour coming up. Support the work of the ACLJ. I need you to go to ACLJ.org right now. Whether it’s CeCe’s incredible work she’s doing at the UN, whether we’re supporting Christians in Nigeria that are being persecuted for their faith, or what we’re doing just around the world. The ACLJ doesn’t exist within the borders just of America. We’re doing work around the world. Go to ACLJ.org. Be right back.
SPEAKER 04 :
Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow.
SPEAKER 03 :
And now your host, Logan Sekulow. Welcome to the second half hour of Sekulow. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. Main topic of the day is that BBNet and Yahoo currently meeting with President Trump at the White House. with plans to potentially start the the process of signing a peace agreement which we went through in the first half hour all of the terms uh they are pretty intense they’re not necessarily uh terms we would have necessarily said we agreed with but you know what like i said there is a moment where you have to lean a little bit to president trump and lean to benjamin yahoo that maybe they know more than we know in these situations however there are certain ones of these that Obviously brings some concern. I want to take some phone calls about it, and CeCe stays with us here for this segment. Let’s go to Dee, who’s calling in Rhode Island on line one. Dee, welcome to the broadcast.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hi. Could you confirm that it was Tony Blair that helped to craft this peace treaty? Is that who was involved in it?
SPEAKER 03 :
Sure, we can look that up. Tony Blair has certainly been a voice of this. There’s been even reports that Tony Blair would temporarily kind of run the government for a number of years. I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad idea. He is an interesting character. He’s obviously not with us on a lot of the issues, but in terms of a leadership position, I’ve actually read his book on leadership. Interesting guy. Definitely has a lot of thoughts. Definitely a proven track record.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I don’t know if he was necessarily the author, but he has been very involved in this process in many ways. And that has been something that has been floated that someone like him, the former prime minister of the United Kingdom, would be the kind of transition authority there in Gaza. I mean, if you would take that role as a Westerner, you have a lot of courage and confidence, but But to this point, also, I believe you told the screener, Dee, that this looks to be somewhat of a reward to the Arabs and a two state solution after the goal, which was that to some degree of October 7th. Actually, the goal was much broader. It was a destruction of Israel, bringing up. that forward. But Cece, I mean, you’ve reviewed what’s in this as well. You’ve been to Israel recently. You run our operation, our international operation here from the United States. What are your thoughts on this at first glance?
SPEAKER 01 :
Right. Well, and the issue is when we talk about a two-state solution, that always sounds like, oh, yeah, that’s a good idea. But here’s the problem. It has to be negotiated between the parties. Other countries can’t come in and force this. And what we need to remember is history here. That over and over and over, and I can’t say that enough, and over and over again, every time there has been any attempt to negotiate a peace between the two sides here, Israel and whether it’s Gaza, West Bank, it doesn’t matter, with the Palestinian Authority or Hamas, every single time, israel is more than willing to compromise and to agree and in fact you’ve had agreements multiple times by israel every single time whether it you know it’s it seems like they’re trying to paint the palestinian authority as a more mild more reasonable that’s right absolutely but you have to remember that the pa has absolutely rejected these peace agreements these negotiations time and time and time again so i guess i’m a little bit
SPEAKER 05 :
leery in that you’re not going to get i think israel will probably compromise israel come to an agreement and we will once again see hamas saying no we’re not going to agree well and if you were to look at this agreement from a structured agreement between two rational actors it starts with ways that you can see a good faith effort at the beginning like releasing all of the hostages in 48 hours and a permanent ceasefire Okay, you can understand how your deal is going within two days. That’s normally how you would structure with rational actors. And then you get to the harder things. The problem is, as you mentioned, CeCe, we’ve seen proposals that were less ambitious than this that fail very quickly because the non-rational actor, Hamas, isn’t really willing to give up their power.
SPEAKER 03 :
They were presented with the option of Tony Blair. This is some reports, and I can’t say these are 100% verifiable, but the reports are that they, quote, were saying, the devil’s brother cannot govern Gaza. Of course, calling him just as much of a war criminal and started talking about the war in Iraq and all of that. So, you know what? Again, some of these may be pipe dreams, but we’ll see where we can go from there. Phone lines are open at 1-800-684-3110, 1-800-684-3110. We’ll be right back with your calls and comments coming right up. We will continue to take your phone calls and comments coming up. We also did want to talk a bit about that Michigan horrible church shooting that happened over the weekend. Of course, this is at LDS Church, a Mormon church in Michigan. At least as of now, four dead, eight injured. There’s, I believe, many more that have been unaccounted for. So we’ll see where that ends up. It’s kind of a blip. in the news i mean obviously it does get it did get coverage um but sadly it’s becoming all too regular and i think that has become uh part of our discussion here which is you know how much time can you focus on these things when they become so normalized when attacks on churches and attacks of a place of worship schools become uh daily news You know, we’re used to violent crime in our city, especially if you live in a major metropolitan city. If you turn on your local news, you’re used to hearing about a shooting or a murder or killing or gang violence that happens. There’s actually an update right now on that Michigan church shooting. Can we just, I mean, you’ll have to tune into it. Someone just make sure, Gretchen Whitmer, the Michigan governor is talking right now. I want to make sure that we, if there’s anything here we’re talking about, we should.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I wanted to bring this up because I think it does connect with what we were talking about with that Bill Maher clip and talking about Nigeria is that for my entire life, we’ve been blessed as Americans to say that we have the opportunity to speak up for those in other countries that are facing real persecution. that are seeing a genocide in Nigeria against Christians, one of the worst countries for Christian persecution, for any persecution in the world. And we always had the luxury of saying, we face pushback or criticism, but we don’t see real persecution. And my concern with what we’ve seen in the United States is that Real persecution, it’s not widespread, it’s not in mass at this point, but we are starting to see that creep into the United States of America, a place where we enshrine in our First Amendment to the Constitution the right to free speech, the freedom of religion. that these are foundational things that America was built upon. And when you see what happened at this church, this LDS church in Michigan yesterday, and this is not a theological discussion, this is not trying to, well, you know, whatever here and get into the nitty gritty of it. What you’re looking at is now another horrific attack on a place of worship that where people that share most of your values, I would say at least in the political sphere, these are people that were in their church worshiping on a Sunday. They weren’t out protesting. They weren’t doing anything. They were in a sanctuary. And someone decided to drive their truck into their church, open fire, and set it ablaze. They planned this. And this is a person that there are photos circulating. He was a veteran. was wearing Trump 2020 shirts. I don’t know his direct motive is, but here’s what I do know. Here’s what we’ve seen uptick in this country over the past 10 years. We’ve seen the government going after people of faith. And these come from people that were even appointed by Republicans. So this isn’t a left versus right. This is that the government and bureaucrats started targeting people of faith, started trying to send spies into Catholic churches. trying to go after homeschool parents. And then that we’ve started to see creep into not just government heavy handedness against people of faith, but we have seen it start to take place in violent ways. The first things that we were seeing were firebombing of pregnancy resource centers after the Dobbs decision. So violence, no one was there though. Then you start seeing pro-life protesters being beaten on the street. We’ve represented ones before. We have a new client that we represent out of Colorado. Same thing. Violence against people for expressing their faith. And now it’s starting to go not just where people are outspoken about their faith out in public, whether it be Charlie Kirk the assassination which had a lot of faith undertones to the the children that were massacred at their Christian school both here in Nashville in Minnesota you’re seeing church shootings rise this isn’t a politics issue this is a spiritual warfare issue that we’re seeing in the United States of America where people from backgrounds that may be left and right are are attacking people of faith. And this is really concerning for people like us that fight for the First Amendment, for religious liberty. We’re seeing this rise and it’s so evil. And I don’t know where we go as a country, but we can’t stop speaking out against this and fighting now.
SPEAKER 03 :
I mean, the only positive you can look at is some of the, I guess you’d say the quote unquote revival that has been happening amongst people and amongst even the celebrities and things like that. Since some of these horrific events have happened, you’ve started seeing people become much more outspoken about their faith. So I am hopeful. That there is a turn that can happen here. Obviously, it is dark. The fact they’re having to respond to anything like this is very sad. I mean, I’m looking at the images right now. It is horrific. Governor Whitmer pretty much said, I just ask people to lower the temperature of your rhetoric. I don’t really even know what that means. It’s not directed to anyone. It’s not directed specifically. Are we talking about people that are talking about the attacks? Who is she even focusing that on? I even asked our producers and they said, we don’t really know. It was just kind of a generic blanket statement.
SPEAKER 05 :
Which has now become the thoughts and prayers of the left.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, lower your rhetoric.
SPEAKER 05 :
Lower your temperature of your rhetoric. I mean, there’s not even really an ascribed motive that I’ve seen to this individual. Like I said, it appears that he was more right wing or at least pro Trump in his rhetoric. So this isn’t even a political issue at this point. We are seeing the culture of America become anti people of faith. Now, we’re seeing a beautiful moment where you’re seeing people that you would never think becoming curious about faith in Christ because in this post-Charlie Kirk assassination world, which is a beautiful thing to see coming out of such a horrific tragedy. But that also makes me concerned that the forces of evil in this world that hate your faith that hate people of faith are going to make it that much harder. And so the ACLJ won’t stop fighting in places like Nigeria. We fought in the DRC. We do these things at the UN. We do these things with the US government, but we also fight here at home. And that battle is getting so much more real on the front lines here in America.
SPEAKER 03 :
You shouldn’t even be thinking about a risk. of going to church or taking your kids to a Christian school or anything like that, or take your kids to school in general. But those are the parts of evil that we should be at the point where we have moved on as a society in terms of, of civility to do this, but it, but it isn’t the case. It actually feels like it gets worse and worse and it becomes, um, less and less powerful, uh, because we’ve see it so often because we see the bloodshed so often and we see, uh, Oh, you know, you start getting excited when you hear, Oh, only three people got killed. And I mean, that’s horrible to say. But it’s just kind of true. Right. Because you’re like, oh, well, three. I mean, we’ve had some of these where it’s 50.
SPEAKER 05 :
I was sitting in church yesterday morning, and this is before I even knew that this happened. But this is the reality of where we’re getting, where I was sitting there, and I never… Our service is structured in a way that you can just worship and not be thinking about the outside world. That’s the way it should be. And for the first time ever, I was sitting there and I started looking around the room thinking, if something horrific happened, where am I going? How am I getting my family out of here? And I’ve never had that thought before. And right after that service, I looked at my phone and saw these headlines. And it is just a helpless feeling, but we cannot give up.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I feel like the first place that started happening to me with my family was movie theaters. There was that shooting that happened in Aurora, Colorado at the Batman screening. Right. And I thought, okay, now every time that a thing that shows up before it goes, make sure you know where your exits are. I am like a hawk because we go to movies a lot. Like we’re a movie loving family and we go to a lot of events, concerts, live things. We love live entertainment. We love being in a group of communal event. whether that’s in Christian music, whether that is in mainstream media, whatever it is, my family loves that. It’s one of the things we love. And what I’ve noticed is that exact same thing happened to me, which is you go, okay, you almost have to make a plan and then try to put it out of your head so you can even enjoy what’s going on in front of you or worship because you go, all I’m thinking about is if there’s something happens here, this is where I have to go. This is what I’m going to tell the kids to do. This is where we’re going to escape. If this happens to this, what are we going to do? Horrible place to live in. I mean, it’s just mentally… So we got to figure that out for sure.
SPEAKER 05 :
That is part of what the plan of people that want to attack churches is. They want to make you scared. They want to distract you from worshiping, from living out your faith. And that is something that there is a reality to it that you sometimes cannot escape where your thoughts go because it is horrific what you’re seeing. But you also have to fight back against it. And we can’t let the culture demonize people of faith to a level where this becomes something that we increasingly see.
SPEAKER 03 :
We see a lot of people talking about this right now in the chats. I’m gonna encourage you. We got one more segment coming up. I love to hear from you from all walks of life, all places around the country and around the world even. We know people watch around the world. So I ask you to call in right now. 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110 to have your voice heard on the air today. If you got a question, maybe you should got a comment. Maybe you have something you want to share with Will and I or with our audience. Be a part of the conversation. And you can only do that because we can open up these phone lines. We can open up all of this conversation because people like you decide I’m going to donate and support. We’re not funded by major sponsors. We’re not funded by the networks that you’re watching this on. We often pay to be on those so they can’t tell us what we can say and that can’t say. So be a part of that movement. ACLJ.org. Do it. Today we’ll be right back with your calls and comments. Coming up. Welcome back to Sekulow. Phone lines are open for you. You got four lines open, so this is a great time to call in. 1-800-684-3110. Thousands of you are watching. I can see those numbers. So if you want to have your voice heard, this is a great time to do it. It really helps us out a lot. Honestly, I love hearing from you. I love taking the tone of the world. especially those who support and watch us here each and every day which of course we do this show if you’re brand new Monday through Friday from noon to 1 p.m. Eastern time if you subscribe on YouTube or however you get your podcasts you can watch us live or of course you can watch us like most of you do which is later on in the day which we understand people pick their times but We love to do this live so we can have that live interaction. We can see the comments coming in. It helps us even decide what we get to talk about. So we’re going to go ahead and take some phone calls. You can call in too. Let’s go ahead. Let’s start with Kevin, Pennsylvania, who’s watching on Salem News Channel. Kevin, go ahead.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes. I was actually calling in about your earlier segment there. You were talking about the Israeli… meeting with Trump and the prospects for a peace agreement. And I go at it with a kind of a hesitant view that it’ll be successful because, you know, Hamas isn’t going away unless they eliminate them completely. And, you know, I fear that they would seep their way back into the government there and continue to cause problems. Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
Kevin, yeah. I mean, history would say that you’re right. I mean, that’s sort of the sad reality. Now, when we had the Abraham Accords set place just a few years ago, I would have said that you’re right about that, along with a lot of the other countries in the surrounding region. That all changed. And I will say that that change was successful for at least a time. It was successful for a time because, honestly, you had President Trump in the administration still pushing it forward. When you start switching to the Biden administration is where you start seeing the crumbling. of the abraham accords which hopefully have stepped up now that being said you got to go into this with caution i i agree with you kevin um this is not like a group that you can trust here to even say you know how many ceasefires have been broken within hours well and to kevin’s point as well the amnesty for hamas members who disavow violence and want to stay in gaza or safe passage out of the enclave if they don’t commit to non-violence so
SPEAKER 05 :
We know they’re liars. We know that they don’t hold up their statements they agree to. So how do you trust those that say, you know what? I’m done with violence. Let me stay here. And we know that also Hamas isn’t the only militant group. The second largest would probably be Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which is, you know, I mean… Thousands of fighters, a small army in and of themselves that have an arsenal of rockets and things of that nature. It’s not just Hamas that fires and attacks Israel. Palestinian Islamic Jihad. actually has a lot more leverage to freely move about and fire indiscriminately because they’re not also trying, and I put that in quotes very loosely, trying to govern the Gaza Strip like Hamas has to do and run ministries of government and things like that. So even if you have this deal that is a permanent ceasefire, and demilitarization, is Palestinian Islamic Jihad signing onto this? Like, are they going to be like, oh, yeah, yeah, we’re good too. Let’s go. So there’s just… It’s hard to see. It’s hard to match the enthusiasm of the administration on this because it just doesn’t seem like something that… historically or even maybe biblically is something that could ever come about we know that that that really peace in jerusalem only happens at one point if you believe the scriptures so this does seem a far-fetched deal that doesn’t really uh make sense in context to me i mean look
SPEAKER 03 :
If they can get it done, they can get it done. And I’m not going to be someone here standing in the way of that being something that should happen. I want to see the end of all wars. No one here really wants to see wars continue on for years and years and years, whether that’s in Israel and Gaza, whether that’s in Russia and Ukraine or all the wars that are happening around the world, especially the ones the U.S. are at least indirectly or directly involved in or involved in funding. Look, I hope there to be a day when my kids can visit Russia once again. I loved visiting there as a kid. I hope there to be a day sooner when my kids can safely visit Israel. Like there’s a risk of traveling anywhere. There’s a risk of traveling to Chicago. There’s a risk of traveling to downtown Nashville. That’s going to happen anywhere you go in the world, but it doesn’t mean you’re also walking into current war that is happening. So if we can wrap up current war, great. I’m all for it. I think that there are some of these terms that feel a little far-fetched, but maybe they’ll get worked out and maybe I’m wrong. You know what? Hopefully I’m wrong. Let’s go ahead and take another call. Let’s go to Mitchell’s calling online for watching on the ACLJ app, which we don’t talk about near enough. The ACLJ app is a really cool way to experience all the work of the ACLJ. Let’s go ahead, though, with Mitchell.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hey guys, thanks for taking the call. I just wanted to know, let’s say the deal goes through or doesn’t go through, do you think that could affect the way Trump kind of approaches Putin? If it goes through, is he going to kind of be more adamant about peace in Ukraine? If it doesn’t go through, do you think that could kind of… Maybe make him rethink his strategy with Putin? Or how do you think that might go?
SPEAKER 05 :
Mitchell, I think it’s a great question. And honestly, you’re already starting to see President Trump kind of shift the way he even talks about Vladimir Putin. Even at the UN, he was saying, you know, I thought that we had a good relationship. We’d be able to get something done. I thought it’d be the easier of the conflicts to get resolved. But he said he’s very disappointed in Putin. He’s already starting to float things. There are a lot more… aggressive and hawkish on the Ukrainian side in ways of helping out seeming to really kind of turn up the heat on that pressure that he wants Vladimir Putin to come to the table and end this so yeah I think it also if there was some sort of deal signed on this even if there were short-term positive reflection on it and the long-term deal could never really be fully implemented, even if you start to see the pieces of this deal at the beginning, I think that would give him a lot of momentum to be able to go in there and show Vladimir Putin and be like, listen, I ended that. Tell me that conflict wasn’t something that was impossible to end. You’re going to come to the table now and we’re going to end this. I think that, yeah, it really could change the way you see him negotiating. And I think also you have to remember with these. President Trump’s goal is to keep the United States and our military out of a boots on the ground military conflict. That’s what he ran on. That’s what he has pushed. He’s trying to save American lives by ending these conflicts that could drag us into them. So when you look at this deal from that perspective, not as someone from the ACLJ that has studied this issue for a very long time, understand the deep intricacies of it, and are very pro-Israel, you can see how from that perspective… of end it, try to keep America out of it, this is the way you’d go. This is the way if you were that, if that was your ideology and way to move forward, this is the way that I see President Trump could be like, this is what I want to put forward and try to get done.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, if you’ve scared slash rational people that are still running Hamas, and I know that’s weird to say, but really you’ve scared them into being rational, maybe. The people that Hamas thought were untouchable are all dead. That’s what I’m saying. So if the people that are remaining are so scared for their lives that they will actually come to the table, Maybe it’s possible. Hard to imagine, but maybe it’s possible. We’re going to continue this discussion coming up this week. We’ve got a lot more to cover, and I’m sure more will come out, more will be discussed. I want to take a second here, just 45 seconds left in this show, to ask you, if you enjoyed this show, if you like what we’re talking about each and every day, if you like the legal work that we’re doing, there’s only one way to support this. That’s go to ACLJ.org. Yeah, your eyeballs help. Subscribing on YouTube, all those things help. But financially is the only way we’re able to stay on the air. Whether that’s through our digital platforms, social media platforms, our terrestrial radio, television, wherever you’re seeing us. We always want to be available without a paywall. And that can only happen with you. Go to ACLJ.org, make it a donation of any kind. Because again, no corporate sponsors, no big corporate overlords. It’s just you and I. Go to ACLJ.org, be a part of it today. We’ll talk to you tomorrow.
