LIVE: Families of Gaza Hostages On Sekulow As Israel War Rages On

Today on Sekulow, families of Gaza hostages are live on our show as the war in Israel rages on. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. We want to hear from you.

Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. All right, welcome back to Sekulow.

I'm back in our studios here in Nashville. My dad is still in Washington, D.C. And as you know, my brother was hosting the broadcast yesterday as we were on Capitol Hill, as we announced the American Center for Law and Justice representing families of hostages, Israelis, families of hostages held captive by Hamas, mothers whose son are being held hostage, brothers whose, their additional brother being held hostage, another brother whose twin brothers are being held hostage. And we hit Capitol Hill really focusing in on the House of Representatives yesterday, both the leadership of the House Republicans, the leadership of the House Democrats. I'll go through the full list because they all do deserve acknowledgement for taking the time not just to meet with these individuals, but also to pledge to do what they can to assist, to keep it on the front of their minds. And one thing that was clear as they did that vigil last night, dad, was by bringing those individuals to Capitol Hill to tell their stories. Those members of Congress, regardless of what side of the aisle they are on, are not going to forget not just those families that we brought, but all of those hostages that they represent. So those families that we have here, the five representatives that we have here, really represent all what now appears to be 242 hostages. I was informed this morning that some of those hostages may well be, Jordan, high-ranking military officers. I've got that from officials, so on calls I was on this morning.

So it's taken a little bit of a twist there. We're handling all of it. We have lawyers deployed right now in our offices here and in our studios in Washington that are working with UN documentation.

We'll talk about that tomorrow, but we've got major work going on there. We, of course, have had the congressional representation. We've met with the ambassador from Qatar this morning. Our senior counsel for global affairs, Mike Pompeo, was in our offices to meet with these families and to say that he will work directly with the emir of Qatar to help on this assistance, which we think is critical. This is probably the most significant, synergized effort we have ever made in our ACLJ history to work on the most difficult hostage situation we have ever worked on.

And we've worked on a lot of difficult ones, but none at this level. But you're going to hear on this broadcast today, family members that have their son or their brothers kidnapped by Hamas, and they don't even know if they're dead or alive. I want to play yesterday how this all started with a press conference after meeting with the families from Speaker of the House Mike Johnson.

Take a listen. We want to thank these families again for their courage and their willingness to share your harrowing stories. And I will say again and reiterate once more, we will stand against these atrocities and we will stand with Israel and we'll stand with each of you and your families. We'll be praying for you and we'll be taking action because that's what we're going to do here.

That's what's called for. I know that your time is short and you have to leave. I want to thank Jay and Jordan Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice for helping facilitate the visit today.

I know you have a tight itinerary, so we'll allow you all to step off the stage, if you will. Folks, we were able to facilitate that because we have a great team in Washington, D.C., in Nashville and around the world who helps facilitate those meetings. And that's because of our ACLJ champions and our ACLJ donors. We're bringing you the heartbreaking stories of these hostages taken by Hamas. We're bringing them into the United States, bringing them to Capitol Hill. We've launched this multi-pronged legal initiative you saw standing alongside them in Congress.

You heard that from the Speaker. You also see it at the European Parliament and soon to be at the United Nations. To meet these legal demands, we've launched our Faith and Freedom Drive. Your tax-deductible gifts will be doubled dollar for dollar through the ACLJ's Faith and Freedom Drive today. Go to ACLJ.org and donate today.

And consider becoming an ACLJ champion with a recurring monthly donation. Today of all days, we need your prayers as we defend these hostages. Many of you downloaded our previous prayer guides.

The impact was massive. Over 60,000 of you downloaded. We have an all-new prayer guide you can download now at ACLJ.org.

It's absolutely free. Slash pray. But we need you to donate.

We need those ACLJ champions. It's how we do the work that we do for those who need this. Welcome back to Secula. Throughout the show, I do want to acknowledge members of Congress who took the time to help schedule these meetings to meet with these families who flew from Israel, who have family members who are hostages taken by Hamas. Of course, you had the House Republican leadership beginning the day with Speaker Mike Johnson, Majority Leader Scalise, Majority Whip Tom Emmer, and the Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik, who I must say an extra thank you to for taking the lead on making sure that that meeting and press conference happened and to thank Speaker Johnson for taking a lead there.

We also brought in Corey Mills. He's been one of those American congressmen who's been flying to Israel to help rescue Americans who can't get flights back. And again, it was just unbelievable to see he didn't have to do it just for Speaker Johnson to acknowledge the ACLJ and to acknowledge that both my dad's work and our work. But right now, joining us in the studio is one of our clients, one of those families with a hostage in the Gaza Strip. I spent the day with her yesterday and Doris Aliber. I will tell you, Doris, this.

When I got home last night to my kids, they were in bed. I broke down in tears. When I saw him going off to school this morning, I waited for him to kind of get out the door and I just had to hug my wife and I broke down in tears because I saw the pictures of your son, of some of our other clients and the children, and they look just like my kids. And the pain that you felt as your attorneys, I don't want you to see that when we're in those meetings, but I'll tell you, once you're back in that private home, and I'm sure that was happening to so many, we saw it happen to members of Congress who are pretty tough but could not hold back their emotions either.

And that's important in these meetings. I know it's difficult to tell these stories, Doris, but you did an awesome job doing it and you're a great advocate for your son. Jordan, thank you. I've got Doris and I are in our studios in Washington, D.C. Doris, this is very difficult and you have had to talk about this for the last 24 hours to a lot of different people. Our audience hasn't heard from you directly and I think it's important that they do it. I remember yesterday when we were in the meeting with Jordan's friend, Congressman Moskowitz and some of the Democratic leadership that came, as well as Debbie Wasserman Schultz was there and she was, I know she hugged you and she hugged the others.

She was very emotionally moved. I want to ask you this, it's important people understand, your boy, your son, you never expect this to happen. Tell us a little bit about Guy first. Well, Guy's a sensitive guy. He sees the world in terms of music. That's how he sees the world.

He's a friendly kind and he is the glue of his tribe of friends and just gets bigger and bigger and yeah. So I want to take you back to October 7th. I know this is really painful but let's go there. He was at the Nova Festival, the Peace Festival. Yeah. What happened? How did you first hear? Well, I actually called him since there were sirens. So you had sirens going off in your, where you live? In all Israel.

I didn't know that at the time but it happens in Israel. It was early in the morning and I just, you know, went to the safe room, crawled under his bed because that's the safe room but it was like something was bothering me. I had to call him. I called him. When you called him, what were you expecting to hear? That everything's okay.

Right. Yeah, I didn't even, I didn't know what's happening. I didn't even open up the news because you know. You were expecting everything okay.

You get on the phone, what happens? I ask him if they were evacuated, if they heard the siren as well and he said, so I ask if the, you know, forces evacuated him and he says we evacuated ourselves. You said that was unusual for him to make that kind of statement, we evacuated ourselves. Why is that so unusual? Because it's like the party was out in the desert. Right. There are forces of course but it didn't even seem like a scenario.

It didn't even rise up in my head. You know, we, Israelis know the drill. We have a siren, we go to a safe place and that's it.

So that's what I was expecting. So what does he, he tells you we're evacuating ourselves. Then when he tells you where, you asked him where he was going to go? Yeah, I asked him where is he driving since he was in the car. Yeah and he says I don't know and that that hit me.

What do you mean you don't know? So he says I didn't decide yet. I mean but you're driving, where are you going? So he said yeah now I decided I'm coming home. The previous night was a holiday. I had a big dinner made and he hardly ate and I made him the soup that he likes the most. So he said I'm coming back home to eat your soup. So you were expecting at that point there was some problems down there but your boy was on the way home. Your son was on the way home.

Yeah. And then you get a call 30 minutes later from his father. Tell our audience what happened. That it was like an hysterical voice on his side and he was like uh do you know where Guy is? And I yeah of course I know where Guy is. He's on his way home. He said no he's not on his way home. He just called. He's in a terror attack and his friends are killed and uh I'm putting you on the line.

With him? Yeah I, I, you know I was like it still didn't hit me. Right. So uh he puts me on the line and then, then, then it you know it starts sinking down since I hear shooting. So you hear the gunshots?

I do. Okay so you knew there was an ongoing attack at that point. Yeah. Your, his father told him to not speak. Exactly.

Why? Because he was afraid he would. That they would hear him. Um I didn't hear this but he was speaking to him uh and uh he said that he was hiding in a tree trunk or behind a tree trunk and uh his father told him just look around try to find dead bodies and try to crawl under a dead body act like you're dead.

And yeah. That was the last call? That was the last call.

I actually um I regret this till this day. I, I, I didn't want him to speak. He wanted to, he, he. He wanted to stay? He wanted, he wanted to say his last words. He wanted to you know say goodbye. Uh he said that he loved us. He said daddy I love you. Mommy I love you. Uh and I say guy I love you. I'm going to get somebody to take you out now. Don't worry.

Just stay put. At that point did you know he'd been shot? No. How did you find that out? Um right after I disconnected of course I called the you know police and uh they just said that they know about the incident. Uh and then I called his father back.

His father was already on the way to that area and then he filled me in with all the details and yeah he told me that uh. And then you were eventually notified that guy is you know he was shot but that he is a hostage? No I didn't know that he was a hostage.

Nobody knew that he knew that he was a hostage. Um. That came on later when the military said we believe he is? Uh it was about over a week after that. So he was like it was a missing person at first? Yeah. And then became then they reported that they believed he was a hostage?

Exactly. You want to know the status of your son? I do. I know I want to know that he's alive first, first of all. I want you to look at that camera right there in the studio and tell us what you want. I want each and everybody to just you know do a phone call.

You voted on congressmen, senators, anybody with any power to do a change, to do action. This is the time to you know do it, do help us, help us all. I'm here not only talking for Guy but for so many other mothers, sisters, brothers. We all want to know what's happening. You want to see your son again? I am. You want him back? I need him. I need him desperately.

He's my only son. I have nothing else. We're doing everything we can as you know. We've got a whole team that are doing it. We're going to continue obviously. We're going to all pray. We're taking action as well. So you were with Mike Pompeo today with the former Secretary of State here.

He's helping as well. Doris, thank you for sharing this with us. Thank you for the opportunity.

Jordan? Yeah and I just want to make sure you know Ardis knows that it's not easy for what Doris has done, flying from Israel, telling that story over and over and over to members of congress, to media, but she's doing it like she said, not just for her son but for all of those hostages. Children, the elderly, the young people, the sick, the injured, that they be returned home and it is the work of the ACLJ representing these families at the highest levels of our government, at the United Nations, and other countries and around the world. Become an ACLJ champion. Be part of our faith and freedom drive today. Donate. Be part of this ACLJ.org.

Welcome back to Seculars. I'm watching Fox News right now. One of those democrats who led a meeting of democrats to meet with these hostages and worked with us, the ACLJ on it, is a good friend of mine. We were in fraternity together at George Washington.

We were in college. We don't agree on every issue but he's a congressman from Florida, Jared Moskowitz, who also served as the emergency management director for Ron DeSantis. So someone who's used to working across party lines, he's talking right now about the hostage situation and bringing attention to that on Fox News. One of those democrats not afraid to go on Fox News and he set up a meeting for the hostage families that included, of course, Jared, but congresswoman Kathy Manning, Dan Goldman, Kim Schrier, Jan Schakowsky, Greg Landsman, Steve Cohen, Lewis Frankel, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Jared, of course, Jamie Raskin, Josh Gottheimer, and they knew that the Seculars were going to be there.

ACLJ was there and I think it just showed that our unique ability to work across party lines on these issues that should not be partisan at all and we don't have to be afraid to be in the same room together and we can be in agreement and I know we've got another family member that we are representing now. This situation involving a brother whose twin brothers have been held hostage and kidnapped by Hamas. So LaRon Berman is here with me in the studio. He is the brother of a set of twins.

I'm a grandfather of twins. LaRon, we've got to tell the story because our audience needs to hear this. How did you get notified what was happening? It all started on the 7th of October around 6.30 in the morning. We heard alarms and missile sirens in Israel.

Sadly, we are used to it. It took us around an hour, an hour and a half to realize it's something bigger than just missiles. The family text group got serious. We asked everyone to stay in the safe room and then later, as the Saturday progressed, we realized it's something much bigger than everyone is used to.

We started seeing videos in the media of Hamas terrorists entering Israel and entering cities and entering the kibbutzim on the Gaza border. And your brothers lived in the kibbutz? My whole family except me lived in the kibbutz.

My mother, father, and three of my brothers. One of them got rescued with my father and mother and the twins are kidnapped into Gaza by Hamas on Saturday. How did you find that?

How did you learn that? They were considered missing for 10 days. We and the IDF, we had no idea where they are. We hadn't got any confirmation that they were dead. And after 10 days, official officers from the government came to our house and told us that with 99.9% guarantee, they know that they are kidnapped into Gaza.

But that's it. We don't know if they are kidnapped together or still together right now in Gaza. And we don't know if they are injured.

We don't know if they are alive in Gaza. We know that they are there. And we haven't got any messages since. How, your reaction to this when you first learned that, what was it going through your head? Of the Saturday or the announcement? Well, when you found out that what was going on October 7th, you knew it was bigger than just rockets. We knew midday that it was bigger. We saw media. We saw pictures. I still don't think that I can comprehend what the scale of what's going on. Some of the pictures, some of the stories are just too horrific to think about.

Not since the 40s in World War II, such horrific acts were happening. Tell us a little bit about your brothers. Tell the people a little bit about your brothers. They are 26, the peak of their life. And they have this, what we call a twin power. Every room they're entering, every group of friends in the family, they are the star of the show. They are each other's best friends. And they are working in the music industry as a light technician. They work with some of the Israel's biggest entertainment and artists. They work, they travel around the world. They just got back from a music festival in Belgium together. They love soccer.

They are the happiest people I can imagine. How are your parents dealing with this? Thankfully, my father doesn't understand.

He has dementia and Parkinson's, so thankfully he doesn't understand. And my mother is very strong. My mother is very strong. There are no upside days.

She doesn't experience joy anymore. But she's strong. And she's doing whatever she can to keep my father safe and my other brothers safe and continue her life day by day. We are not thinking far ahead. We are not thinking about two weeks from now. We are thinking about today and tomorrow.

And she's strong. You were on Capitol Hill. It was very moving, the testimony that you gave to your father.

You were moving the testimony that you gave and the others with you. You met with Mike Pompeo this morning, the former Secretary of State. You know we're pulling out everything we can do to help. As you were on Capitol Hill yesterday, what was going through your mind? I got to meet both houses, Democrats and Republicans. And I felt, I can't say for everyone else, but what I felt is that both houses were very sympathetic of our cause and both wanted to do something.

Both parties asked us what we can do, tell us what we can do. And it reassured me that the American Congress is behind us, behind the families and behind Israel. And it felt good to be there and to speak with them. And it reassured me that the Congress is behind us, behind our cause, and wanted to do something.

Yeah. Well, I could assure you that that's happening. We've talked about that, and we're going to continue to do that.

We've got some additional moves we're going to be making, including at the United Nations. We're going to have more about that, Jordan, on the program later today. Thank you so much for sharing your family story and know that we're working hard. We'll continue to work hard and praying for you and everybody. And I know you're really representing not just your brothers, but the other hostages as well. Thank you, Jordan.

Thank you for everything. Thank you, Jordan. Folks, this is the time to join the Faith and Freedom Drive. We brought you these heartbreaking stories, our clients, stories of hostages taken by Hamas. They've flown from Israel to tell members of Congress and to talk to you, the United Nations, about their stories, representing all the families who have loved ones taken hostage by Hamas terrorists. We represent them. We've launched a multi-prong legal effort. You saw us standing alongside these families before Congress yesterday with Republicans and Democrats.

We'll be fighting at the European Parliament, at the United Nations as well. And you know we've launched that Faith and Freedom Drive where your gifts will be double dollar for dollar through the ACLJ's drive. Go to ACLJ.org today. And if you can become a recurring donor, become an ACLJ champion. Make that monthly automatic donation.

Join to be an ACLJ champion. We didn't know this was going to happen. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow.

Hey, welcome back to Sekulow. I know those stories are tough to hear, but we want you to hear them directly. We wanted to give you the time to hear what members of Congress heard as well, just to give you a glimpse inside what it's like for these families in Israel, some who are dual citizens, some who are Israeli who have made the flight over to meet with the members of Congress, to meet with Secretary Pompeo, to meet with other world leaders, to head up to the UN as well. And, and dad, again, we know how tough it is for them to keep telling these stories, but they've all said, like, this is their job right now. Their job is to go out.

If they've got the ability to do so, and they've been linked up with groups like ours, it's their job to do what they can to get their family members home and other family members home. People that are hurting, they've all said it that, I mean, I think one of the brothers said, every day is October 7th that he lives. Every day is that day. Doris said yesterday, every day is an eternity. I'm holding a picture, a poster that has been, we shared with Congress. This is Doris's son Guy. That's Guy, the twins that we talked about yesterday, Gali and Zvi Berman.

Here they are. Folks, this is as real as it gets. It doesn't get any more real than this. And we're not just, you know, having meetings with Congress. C.C.

Hile has been upstairs with Andy Economy. We're drafting documents that are being filed with the United Nations. We'll get into more of that on tomorrow's broadcast. We're taking direct actions at multiple venues, politically, legally. We are doing everything we can. This is a unbelievable challenge. I mean, it's an unfathomable situation.

It's an unbelievable challenge. But these people really need the help of the ACLJ, and we're doing that. Jordan, do you want to take a call? Do you want to try to take a call? Sure. 1-800-684-3110.

We could certainly take a call. Let's go to Faith in Colorado, on Line 1. Hi, Faith.

Hi. I just want to call and say thank you so much to both Jay and Jordan and everyone that is trying to help in this situation. We just want to tell the families that have their precious loved ones taken captive, that we're praying day and night for them. Our hearts are broken for them. We pray and we stand with Israel.

We love the Israelis, and we stand with all Jewish people around the world. And we will not sleep well until we know that all the hostages are freed. Thank you very much.

I appreciate that, Faith. I got a nice text last night, Jordan, by the way, from the speaker, who said they were all very moved by the testimony of our clients. I will now say they are clients of the American Center for Law and Justice.

They were very moved. They're doing everything they can. Mike Pompeo assured us that he will be dealing with governments that can have an influence here, like Qatar and others, on the highest level, which means the emir. We already met with the ambassador to the United States here, who is also a family member of the emir of Qatar. But these are real people, folks, and they're representing the 240 that are held hostage by Hamas. And we have a huge challenge here. We have 10 lawyers working on that just in the United States.

We've got lawyers in our Jerusalem office working on it, of course, in our European Center for Law and Justice office working on it. But these are real people. These are young men that have been taken. There are babies that have been taken, three-year-olds, six-month-olds. One of the people that testified yesterday, her three-year-old grandniece. The parents are dead. The child allegedly is being cared for by Hamas.

I mean, could you imagine this? So we need to do everything we can, which we are, to get these people released, to get freedom for these captives. We want you to go to aclj.org and join our Faith and Freedom Drive.

When you see the images, and you're someone my age who's got kids that are that age that look like those kids, it's hard not to say, okay, whatever we can do. And, of course, we can do a lot at the ACLJ because of your support. That's the reason we're able to do it.

And that's why we have these relationships. And so be part of our Faith and Freedom Drive at aclj.org. And again, if you can become an ACLJ champion, a recurring donor, that sets us up so that we're ready to go at any time something like this happens.

You can't plan these things. That we're always ready to go and do what is right, become a champion, go to any place, champion, go to aclj.org, donate today. Welcome back to Secula. I did want to acknowledge as well those members of Congress on the Republican side, not just the leadership who met with the families or the Democrats who met with the families, including Hakeem Jeffries and that group put together by Jared Moskowitz and other Democrats. There was also an additional Republican roundtable hosted by Joe Wilson, Congressman Wilson, who is the Middle East subcommittee chairman on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. It was joined by Warren Davidson, Congressman Ronny Jackson, Congressman McCormick, Congressman Baird Lawler, Virginia Fox, who's also the chair of the Education Workplace Committee.

Kathy McMorris Rogers is the chair of Energy and Commerce Committee. Congressman Atterholt, Congressman Mulanner, Congressman Latta, Congressman Siskamani, Garbarino, and Congressman French Hill, who all again took that time and will be telling those stories. There was then a vigil on Capitol Hill, bipartisan, but put together by Speaker Johnson and Hakeem Jeffries. A vigil for the hostages being held by Hamas happened last night. So again, this attention is very important and the U.S. role that Congress can play in their connections with foreign governments, with the executive branch, and their oversight capabilities are very important because they get those classified briefings as well.

And many of these hostages are dual nationals or are families of dual nationals that include Americans. So I mean, I think, Dad, what we showed yesterday from the ACLJ, I'm not bragging about this because Lord knows you don't want to have to be doing this work, but you certainly are going to do the work if you can in these kinds of situations, is that we were able to not just bring together, you know, conservative Republicans, but liberal Democrats together who are on the same side as those conservative Republicans to get these hostages home. It was very impressive.

Our team did a great job. I want to thank our entire government affairs team for doing a great job. I'm in the studio with a friend of mine who I've known for a number of years, a lawyer from Israel, Kalev Myers. Kalev has organized this. He's an organization that is kind of a coalition part of this. And this is going to be a long-term thing, folks, until these hostages are freed. Voice4, that's the number four, freedomcoalition.org, they'll put it on the screen. Kalev, let's talk about, we've had the families, we've done the Capitol Hill aspect, we're doing more now.

We've got a big strategy session coming up, a good portion of the day tomorrow. You're an Israeli. You know what this is like. There's never been a, there's been hostages in Israel before. I think of Entebbe.

You think of Sabina Airlines. This is totally different because of the nature of Hamas, the way they did it, the brutality, but also the way they dispersed them. Absolutely. I think we need to remember what type of people are holding the hostages. These are people who came into civilian towns and cities, raped, tortured, massacred, elderly, babies, men, women, slaughtered pregnant women. And these are people that are holding right now over 240 hostages. So there's great urgency on this issue. And first, I want to start by just thanking ACLAJ for everything that you've done, making the delegation to Washington so meaningful, setting up all of our meetings in Congress, both on the Democratic and Republican side, is absolutely phenomenal. And it's brought a lot of hope to the families. We know, like you said, this is just the beginning of the fight.

And I really appreciate your tenacity. You know, I think about a couple of things for you. I appreciate you saying that, but Caleb, I think about the fact that on the Democratic side, and it was a very touching meeting. I went over and talked to Debbie Wasserman Schultz. She has twins. I told her, I have twin grandchildren, and we were all talking about that. And she gave me a hug.

I gave her a hug. Dan Goldman, who I battled with on the floor of the United States House of Representatives for a month, he represented the Democrats in the impeachment of President Trump. I represented the President.

He and I embraced. There was this tremendous — when you heard the stories of the people, and they're just representing — the folks that are here in the United States now really are representing everybody else. But the fact that Jordan went to school with Jared Moskowitz, who's later a congressman, I mean, God has done unbelievable things here, because you could not have orchestrated this up.

Mike Johnson's a friend of ours. He becomes the speaker, wasn't expected to be. So all that happened. But let's talk about the kind of game plan we're going for. We've got a big meeting tomorrow. I don't want to get into the details on that, because we've got to have a strategy here until the moment these hostages are home.

Absolutely. And so we've built a coalition, like you said, the Voice for Freedom Coalition. Today it represents over 350 Christian organizations worldwide.

Some of those organizations are actually networks with thousands of organizations. So we're representing, let's say, tens of millions of Christians around the world. There are many groups that are working on behalf of the Forum for the Family of the Hostages. Just this week, eight delegations came to the United States to advocate on their behalf. The Voice for Freedom Coalition is unique, because we're the only group that's focused on the non-Jewish, non-Israeli voice outside of Israel.

And it's no secret that the vast majority of Zionists in the world, the vast majority of people in the world who love Israel are not Jewish. And so we're focused on that voice. We feel like it's very, very important to enlarge and to empower that voice, to come with a strategy. Before coming to Washington two weeks ago, we were in Geneva. We brought the families into a meeting with the President of the International Red Cross, herself being a Christian.

She wept in the meeting. She gave us very strong commitments to work around the clock every day, all day, on behalf of these hostages. So we're trying to connect to those type of leaders and decision makers that can actually do something on their behalf. You know, Jordan, yesterday, as you know, when you were in the meeting, we were able to meet with the ambassador of Qatar, and that happened by just a coincidence of multiple things.

It happened to be the meeting that Jared set up, a congressman was there, and then somebody from the Republican Study Commission knew the person that's in charge of the scheduling office or the assistant to the ambassador. Those aspects, Jordan, are also important. People need to understand, I think our audience needs to understand, Jordan, that this is, we're looking at this, the UN, so it's kind of a multitasked portion of us.

Got public relations, United Nations, international law, domestic politics, and international politics. And for us, going into those meetings is just as similar as going into meeting with members of Congress, meeting with ambassadors. I've been in Doha meeting with that ambassador's boss, the foreign minister, working on the release of Christians being held that time.

It was in Iran, and it led to a successful release. So we've been in those diplomatic meetings at even a higher level before, so when one comes about very quickly, thank those congressmen for doing that. It's not something that we're concerned about doing the ACLGR, we don't know what to do. This is something we've been doing for years all around the world in some of the toughest parts of the world, whether that's the Muslim world, whether that is Sub-Saharan Africa, whether it is Sudan, where we have done those meetings, and in South Sudan while bullets are being shot across and independence is being declared. We've been there, we've done it. So when you've done it at that level, you know what to do, you know how to prepare, what to expect, what to ask for, and how to follow up. And also to work with your clients to understand, to put in what they can expect so that you're not going in there expecting too much or too little, but also the right tone. It's different than working with just an American politician or an Israeli politician when you're talking at the diplomatic level. So we have all of that inside the ACLJ, and in this unique situation, and we see this only a couple of times, maybe throughout all of our work, where you need the legal, you need the government affairs, you need the international, you need the ability to go into Washington to work bipartisan, but you also need the ability to go into diplomatic offices. And you've got to have people that have been all over the world, and we have people on our team who are top assistants to cabinet secretaries, who have traveled to every country in the world, who know the leaders of these leaders, who know the bosses of these ambassadors.

And in that situation, it makes that meeting that much more effective, that time you have with them, those words you choose to use, that much more effective. And again, this is a very difficult situation, but Lord knows, dad, we have been in situations where people have been on death row and ultimately released, and it didn't look like they were going to be released. And so we have seen good outcomes before. You can't promise that, but what we can do as ACLJ members and people who support Israel, which certainly our members do, is do everything we can in our power to make sure as many of these hostages who are still alive do return home.

And Caleb's going to stay with us, and the Economist is going to join us as well. We only got about a minute here before we take a break, but I want you to tell this to the folks. We're just at the stage one of this.

This is the very beginning of this project. Yeah. I mean, we're praying for a miracle, Jay.

Of course. We need a miracle. We need a miracle. And so I hope that stage one will end very quickly and the hostages will be released this week, tomorrow. But it's likely that this will be a drawn out long situation.

And so right now we're mobilizing, we're strategizing, we're putting together the plan. It was great that we were able to meet with the Qatari ambassador yesterday. Obviously they've been playing a double game, a very dangerous game, sending all this money to Hamas.

I think he was going to play camp. Right. But now if you've been sending this money saying, you know, this is the way we'll eventually have influence when needed, today's the day of influence. Like if they're not, you know, make their voice heard and pressure Hamas to release the hostages, then they've just been facilitating a terrorist organization period. Voice for the number four, freedom coalition.org to get information. I encourage you to do it, support the work that they're doing there, support the work of the ACLJ as well. You know, we're in our faith and freedom campaign, which we launched without knowing this was going to be obviously happening. But here we are, and we encourage you to support the work. We've got 10 lawyers working on this. We've got our, we've deployed our offices and we'll continue to do that all over the globe.

Go to ACLJ.org forward slash faith and freedom. And if you can become a monthly donor, recurring donor, become an ACLJ champion, we're going to be back with Kalev and also our senior council, Andy Akonimo. And we've got a senior team on this folks.

You can tell that just by who's on the broadcast. Back with more in a moment. All right, welcome back to Secula. We are taking your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110. I do want to take some of your phone calls. People have been holding on and they do have questions for us. I want to go to Mike in New Jersey online too. Hey Mike, welcome to Secula. You're on the air.

Thank you very much. I got a New York post here on page seven, which is that Hamas's top leaders are worth a staggering $11 billion and they're living in Qatar, probably around, I think Doha, where there's also the headquarters of Al Jazeera. I guess with $11 billion, you're really not able to build any bomb shelters in Gaza.

So I really feel sorry for these fellows. You know, it's interesting that because this is this bizarre distinction the world has made between the political leadership of Hamas, that's what they call it, the political office, the non-militant office. It's Khalid Mashal, it's Ismail Hanei, who no longer live in the Gaza Strip. But it is true, like many of these leaders like Mahmoud Abbas, they have made themselves billionaires, billionaire terrorist leaders.

They have. And Kalev, the people of Gaza probably don't know what like they should, that the amount of money, I'm going to ask Andy about the UN side of this in a moment, but the amount of money that's been siphoned off by these so-called leaders is breathtaking. If you take all the money that's been donated to the Palestinians since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1994, okay, compare it to the amount of money given to Europe under the Marshall Plan for the complete reconstruction of the European economy after World War II, the Palestinians have received 15 times the Marshall Plan, okay, and it's all been siphoned off into the private bank accounts of these corrupt leaders. The first people who will dance in the street, I guarantee you there's a first people who dance in the street when Hamas is destroyed are the Palestinians in Gaza. Even if they hate Hamas, they can't say anything or do anything. We're talking about every year, thousands of arbitrary arrests, torture and degrading treatment, executions without trial of Palestinians by Hamas, not by Israel. The worst abuser of Palestinian human rights is Hamas in Gaza, but while their leadership sit in Doha in great comfort. Andy, we're doing work at the UN on this.

C.C. Howe is working with clients right now in our offices here, but the UN on this has been horrific. It's been terrible, but traditionally so. The UN is a feed organization that does not do the things that it's supposed to do in the region, and the money that we give to the United Nations, similarly the United States, a big contributor, is wasted. The money that could have been used in Gaza to build an equivalent of an Eastern Mediterranean, it could have been Tel Aviv, it could have been the French Riviera. I mean, with the money that was poured into that, as Caleb mentioned, it could have been a resort, it could have been a tremendous place for economically, yes, economically, and instead it turns out to be a terrible place, and the United Nations is responsible for this. We're not impressed, but we do participate because people listen to the United Nations, and so we believe that we need to have a presence there, and we do have a presence there in the United Nations. I want to play what Elise Stefanik from New York said yesterday.

This is bite number 18. Hear this loudly and clearly. House Republicans stand with these families next to us, we stand with the Jewish community, and we stand like a rock, as our speaker said, with our most precious ally Israel. We will do everything in our power to ensure that Israel has the resources to return every last hostage to their family from these Hamas terrorists. This is the language that has to be—go ahead, Andy, go ahead. I want to say something in all this that Congresswoman Stefanik said, and it's very important. We are all Israelis.

Everybody. It reminds me of the situation in 1940 in Greece on the island of Xikinthos when the Hitler commanding colonel came up to the archbishop of the Greek Orthodox archbishop of the island and said, here's a piece of paper, write down the names of all the Jews. And he took the piece of paper, and he wrote his name first. And he said, I am the first of the Jews. He says, there are 167 Jews on this island, and they're under my jurisdiction.

And there were 176 when the Nazis took over, and Jay, there were 176 when the war ended. We are all Israelis in this fight. There are no Greeks, there are no Jews. St. Paul said that in Romans, first the Jew, and then the Greek, but we are all equivalent here. Every one of us is Jewish. You know, a lot of these families, and they've shared it, not necessarily have a religious faith, but they're Jewish by culture. I mean, and Doris is saying, our only solace now is prayer, and she never prayed before. But that's why you want to also activate the Christian community on this.

Yeah, absolutely. And obviously, you know, we're talking about hundreds of millions of Christians around the world who love Israel and support this cause. That's a very, very strong voice compared to the Jewish. The Jewish voice is important. It's critically important. We should work together. But very, very, very important when non-Jews stand up for Jews.

What Andy just said is beautiful, very reassuring to me as an Israeli. Yeah. All right, let's go ahead and take another call, Jordan.

Sure. We'll go to Patty in Ohio on Line 3. Hi, Patty.

Welcome to Sekulow. You're on the air. Patty, you there? May have dropped Patty, so we'll move on there.

She'd been on for a long time. You know, Dad, I just do, I do want to say that for our team, for our listeners out there, you know, this was put together by a team of government affairs team in Washington, D.C., using all of our contacts as well, in really a matter of days. This wasn't like we had two months to plan all of this on Capitol Hill.

And you know that Capitol Hill has been in flux with the leadership in the House side, with trying to get budgets through the House, the Senate, you know, and continuing resolutions, war in the Ukraine, war in Israel and Gaza. I mean, this is a time again when we used all of our expertise, we put it on the table, and we were able to have it ready to go because we have donors, Dad, who donate during times when it's not this busy or not this, you know, moment-to-moment, second-to-second need, where we're doing our normal work at the ACLJ, which is not very normal anyways, it's all pretty intense, but you know what I mean, that this, again, wasn't months of planning, but we were able to do it because we had the resources to do it. We don't have to, we didn't have to think twice about can we afford to do this or not. That's that situation that our ACLJ champions are putting us in, where we can do the right thing without having to think twice about the cost. I want to tell you something to our, I want to say something to our ACLJ members. I mean, we probably have 10 cars here right now, moving people all over Washington, DC.

We have had, I mean, literally 20, 30 people in the offices working from various groups working together. And Jordan, I think about this building that we're in, that was a gift from a foundation many years ago. We know we're about to announce an expansion of this facility next year. But I think about that and the foundation that gave this money to us, they always wanted to be anonymous, so I'm going to keep it that way. But their love of the Jewish people and their love of Israel was one of the main factors, Kalev. And I'm thinking about that family right now. I think about Art and Nancy and that family and just say, thank them, God bless them, because it was moments like these, whether it's a Supreme Court nomination or whatever it might be, when you see this facility being used like this, you know that God had his hand in it. So, Jordan, thank you for thanking our team.

This has been a combined effort. Kalev's team with the Voice for Freedom Coalition, others that have been involved in this, JDA Communications, I can go on and on and on. But those members of Congress, God bless them, Republicans and Democrats, thank you. Ambassador for Qatar, thank you.

And Mike Pompeo, our Senior Counselor for Global Affairs, thank you. But most importantly, thank you, our ACLJ members, Jordan. Yes, go to ACLJ.org. Be part of our Faith and Freedom Drive. And think about becoming an ACLJ champion and making that a recurring donation. That is so important to us at ACLJ.org. And if you want that new prayer guide, we've launched a new prayer guide, ACLJ.org slash pray. It's absolutely free. Talk to you tomorrow.