BREAKING DETAILS: Ebrahim Raisi Killed In Helicopter Crash

We've got breaking news.

The President of Iran killed in a helicopter crash. 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, Logan Sekulow. I do want to hear from you. This is Logan Sekulow in studio here as well with executive producer Will Haynes. We've got a packed show. Jeff Balibon is going to be joining us. Head of ACLJ Israel as well as Rick Grenell.

He'll be on later. Former director of national intelligence. Going to be a great show as we talk about a couple topics that are happening all involving the Middle East. The first one obviously is what hit over the weekend, which was there was a helicopter crash involving the President of Iran. This happens obviously just weeks after the attack on Israel by Iran.

This helicopter crash was allegedly due to bad weather and faulty old equipment. But obviously this has created an uproar in the Middle East of what it's going to look like going forward. What does this mean?

Does this mean there's an opportunity for maybe some sort of diplomacy to take place where you can have someone? Because you have what was called obviously the President there, Raisi. President Raisi was known as the butcher of Tehran for his oversight of mass executions of political prisoners in 1988.

And of course, he was probably responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths of Iranian people. So now we look towards what happens next. You have to see thousands in the streets praying for maybe his safety when there was unsure because the original reports came out that he had they'd suffered a hard landing and then it continued to unfold. I think everyone knew where it was going. It was snowy.

There are wolves. There was a lot of things happening in that region. And of course, the news was confirmed late last night, early this morning Iranian time that, in fact, all the passengers on board this helicopter had perished. They said the crash killed up to eight or killed eight people in all, including three crew members. And again, if you really look back on it, a really interesting time for this obviously to happen.

Someone who is beloved by some in their community. And then there were reports, there was videos kind of unverified of people celebrating. There were fireworks going off. Now, some people said those videos were when they attacked Israel. Some just a little unsure.

When it comes out of that area of the world, you don't really know what you're getting. It actually took a very long time for them to even say that he had been killed in this crash. But the death of the President of Iran, obviously above him is the Ayatollah.

So I so make sure people understand sort of the hierarchy. The Ayatollah is still very much involved in his 80s, though. And then you have a President and you had he was kind of presumed to be the front runner, if you will, to become the Ayatollah.

That's right. So Ayatollah Khomeini is 85 years old. He has had a litany of health issues over the past years. Even during the covid pandemic, there was imagery that came out that looked like he was attached to medical devices and things.

So not in good health. And a lot of people had been talking about who his successor would be because there isn't a named successor. Raisi was high on this list while he is the President of Iran. He is, in theory, elected by the people of Iran, but really the Ayatollah picks who he wants to be President and they have an election.

And you know how that goes. But he was very much seemed like he was being positioned to take over when either the Ayatollah passes away or steps down from that role. Now, this kind of creates a power vacuum within Iran, especially with the President who is in that role. But also the foreign minister at a time when they have a lot of foreign adventurism going on, also killed in that helicopter crash as well. Well, this certainly blows the door down in terms of conspiracy theories or just theories, let's not even say conspiracy theories, of what actually happened here. And I'm sure you have them.

We've all had them. We all had thoughts. Every pro-Israel, you know, non-official Twitter account, ex-account, if you will, was putting things in relation to this.

But they had an official statement, Israel did, which is an Israeli official denied to Reuters the country had any involvement in the deadly crash, saying bluntly, it wasn't us. What do you think? Give us a call.

1-800-684-3110. I see the comments pouring in. I'm curious what your thoughts are and what this means for the future of the Middle East, what this means for the future of Iran.

We obviously are 15ish years out from their last sort of revolution moment. Maybe this can inspire something else. Could it de-escalate the tension going on?

Could it inflame it? Could we see an end to the war because we know that there's a potential of something like this happening? We'll discuss it all. Jeff Balaban for ACLJ Jerusalem is going to be joining us. And again, Rick Grenell later in the broadcast.

Give us a call. Welcome back to Secular. Look, I understand sometimes it's hard to understand why these topics are important to you. And that's why we're going to bring in some experts here later in this broadcast to really explain. You have heard, though, about Iran for decades now. And then obviously recently you had Iran lob tons of missiles directly at Israel. And of course, Israel took down 99 percent of it. And just a few weeks later, the President is now dead. I'm not saying there's anything to that.

I'm not saying there's not anything to it. But what we can say is this is a pivotal moment. This moment could change everything. Now, there are obviously the reports.

We just watched the break. Some people on Fox were saying we're going to the same brutal regime. It's still going to be terrible. While true, there's a vulnerability that maybe has not happened in a long time here. Well, where now you do have a moment if you have the people where in this special election that has to happen. Now, I'm not saying it will happen. I'm not saying that it's going to be fully legitimate. But there is a moment right now for Iran to kind of change course. And maybe, maybe this happens sometimes. Maybe sometimes the government is smart enough to actually look around what's happening, see what the people are doing because they don't want to be overthrown violently and make a course correct.

That's right. And if you've watched Iran over the past few years, you've known that, one, there has been unrest in the streets. A lot has been about the treatment of the government against the women population in Iran. And there's been moments of a glimmer of hope that there could be an uprising out of the people of Iran to really see an overturning of the government that's established there and that came out of the revolution in the 70s. The problem is now for the Iranian government, they've spent a lot of their economy. They've invested a lot of their economy into adventurism across the Middle East, whether it be funding Hamas or the Houthi rebels.

He sounds so kind when you say adventurism. I think we need to say terrorism. Right. Terrorism is a much better word for it.

There you go. Funding the terror groups and the attacks on the state of Israel, as well as destabilizing the region as it goes. And as the Biden administration has released more sanctions relief on them, they have just poured that money instead of into their own economy and people into more terrorism. Now, what you see here is an embarrassment to the regime when their thousands of drones and missiles and rockets didn't land anywhere in Israel, as well as now the death of their President and foreign minister in just the weeks following that. It is by their law that now the first vice President is the interim President to help set up the mechanism for a special election that is by law will take place in 50 days. So there's a short runway here of the ayatollah to figure out what he wants the replacement to look like, what he wants the future of the government to look like. And as you say, potentially a course correction.

I wouldn't give him any credit there. But there is also that opportunity of the people seeing real weakness in the regime for maybe the first time in a long time. We saw the Green Revolution back in 2009 that President Obama and Vice President Biden at the time largely snubbed. They didn't speak out in favor of these student protesters that really had an opportunity to make change, but the United States did not lend their support or even lip service to these protests. And what you saw was a failed attempt at revolution.

Maybe that movement has grown, has gotten stronger, and you see in the result of all of these failures by the Iranian regime recently, perhaps there's a will of the people to stand up and do something more. Possibly. I'd hope so. I hope you could see a moment like this used as a positive. Obviously, when there is a death of a President and it is someone like the butcher of Tehran, who again, his own people call him that due to the fact that he was directly responsible for thousands and thousands of deaths. And maybe there is that moment again.

I wouldn't hold my breath. But I do also want to tell you that we're going to discuss in the next segment, because this broke just this morning, is that the ICC has officially said they're going to seek arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as other Israeli and some Hamas leaders. We're going to talk about in the next segment what that actually means, because you may hear about the International Criminal Court and think it's some fictitious place and it has no real meaning in society.

Not true. And Harry Hutchinson broke down some of the restrictions that will now be on Prime Minister Netanyahu. And they are pretty extreme when you're talking about trying to have diplomatic meetings or any sort of diplomacy around the world for your own country. So we're going to discuss that coming up in the next segment. And we also have a petition right now is a petition specifically about that. We are fighting back right now for Israel.

Here's just what they've told me. The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court just announced again, as we said, he is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel is facing not only attacks from Hamas and Iran, but now it is facing lawsuits from the ICC. And at the same time, the Biden administration continues to undermine Israel. We've seen that over and over and over again.

And the ACLJ were fighting back two different ways. We just filed two critical written submissions to the U.N. to defend Israel, expose Iran's plot to utterly destroy the Jewish state. This obviously comes on the heels of their President dying over the weekend.

So what could that mean? And we actually have gotten involved in a case. And just hours ago, I can't wait to really dive into this. We filed an emergency submission at the U.N. to save a life of a Jewish man that Iran planned to execute today.

Now, the ACLJ has had some movement in that. We will discuss because the plan was today. And we actually have an update for you. But you can take action with us. Sign our petition, help defend Israel. Stand up for our Jewish brothers and sisters. Sign now at ACLJ.org slash sign. Do that today. Again, cost you nothing. Help support the people of Israel. Sign the petition ACLJ.org slash sign.

I also encourage you to give us a call at 1-800-684-3110. I'm going to be taking your calls and questions throughout this broadcast. But man, it is a busy time here. There is unrest all over the world. And that's where some of our team is. You know, we have teams headed to Europe in the next weeks. You know, that that's happening right now.

There's a lot of prep going on. I don't want to give a lot of details there, because honestly, for their own safety and their own security, I'm not going into details of where our team is headed and what they're doing. But that is going on actively at the ACLJ. We are involved in Europe. We are involved here in America and all these states. But we need you to get involved to, of course, sign that petition today and defend Israel.

But no, the work is continuing and it's happening well around the world. And when you have situations like this, that's why I'm really lucky that the next segment we're going to have on Harry Hutchinson here in the studio, as well as Jeff Balaban, who I'm not sure is calling from New York, Israel right now. He's in New York right now. He's ahead of our Jerusalem office. You've seen him live in Jerusalem, live in New York. He kind of goes back and forth between the two. So he'll be live in New York to really discuss what the impact is of the ICC move to arrest, to call for the arrest, the arrest warrant issued for Benjamin Netanyahu.

That's right. And it was something that we had heard rumblings about weeks ago that the prosecutor, Khan at the ICC, was looking into the potential of filing arrest warrants. Now he has issued a statement that he has filed the applications for arrest warrants and the situation in the state of Palestine.

Interesting word choice there. The ICC is going already and declaring the state of Palestine, and they are going into the details of what they see are war crimes, in their opinion. And so, yes, did they put out an arrest warrant or requested an application for an arrest warrant for Sinwar, who is the head of Hamas, the commander in chief of the military wing, the al-Qassam brigades, and then also the head of the Hamas political bureau. But also, they have filed an application for an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu and the minister of defense, Gallant.

And they state in this press release about their application for arrest warrants, that the war crimes perpetrated by the Israelis began on October 8th of 2023, the day after the Hamas massacre and attempted genocide of Jewish citizens of Israel. And that, to me, just shows, one, how the angle and the methodology as well as the motive of the ICC here is to go after the Jewish people. It's the International Criminal Court, something you may not even know exists. Obviously, the ACLJ has been involved. We've argued cases there. We've been involved with Israel and for Americans at the International Criminal Court.

Not all countries, I think America is one of them, do not recognize the International Criminal Court, but a lot of countries do. If you watch the videos, it feels like something very dystopian. It feels like futuristic.

Everything is, you know, everyone is in robes and there's marble. It's a very odd experience to watch, but it's real and it's happening. And there are real implications. It's easy to kind of hear the International Criminal Court and kind of pretend it has no meaning or no bearing on society.

It really does. It's like the U.N. We have to be involved in the U.N. You may not like the U.N., understandably, but the ACLJ has to be involved at the U.N. Or guess what happens? Criminal sanctions.

All these things start to happen when you're not there to support countries like Israel or the United States. If you don't show face, if you don't have these special requirements to be there, you are going to fail and you are going to falter. And we can't do that without your support. So I encourage you to go to ACLJ.org slash sign right now. That's all I'm asking you to do. Sign the petition.

If you want to support financially, awesome. I love it. I appreciate it. If you want to become an ACLJ champion, that's a monthly supporter. Know that I appreciate it greatly. But today we're just asking you to simply sign that petition. And if you're watching on YouTube, I'm going to ask you to hit the thumbs up. If you haven't subscribed, subscribe. And then the comments. If you have nothing to say, I understand you're just taking a lot of this information in. Just say, hey, Logan, I'm watching from wherever.

I always like to read those during the break. Tell me where everyone's watching from. We have people watching in the Middle East, which is awesome. I love hearing their feedback to our commentary. But when we get back in the next segment, Jeff Balabon, head of ACLJ Jerusalem.

Professor Harry Hutchinson will be joining us in studio. If you have a question for them, even give us a call at 1-800-684-3110. Again, the ACLJ fully active. Welcome back to secular.

We are taking your calls also 1-800-684-3110. What do you think the Biden administration's response is going to be to this, if any? Of course, we're talking about the International Criminal Court, which is now issuing arrest warrants for, of course, some of the Sinwar and some of the leaders of Hamas. Yeah, maybe that's justified. But I also decided to issue arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and some members of the Israeli team. So that is happening right now. I got Harry Hutchinson joining me in studio.

I also got Jeff Balabon. Jeff, obviously you're head of ACLJ Jerusalem. I want to get your initial feedback for that.

And then, Harry, you brought up in our meeting earlier today some of the impacts, some of the fallout that actually could come from this. Because people here in International Criminal Court, they don't necessarily understand the ramifications. They think of it as this dystopian, futuristic land that really has no bearing on society.

But they do. But, Jeff, obviously you're connected more to our office in Jerusalem. I want to get your initial thoughts.

Right. Well, there's a reason that both Israel and America are not part of the International Criminal Court. And some of it for America is constitutional. But first of all, some of it is because it's very clear that the groups that make up the International Criminal Court, not dissimilar to the groups that make up the United Nations, which has an agreement with the International Criminal Court, are committed to the destruction of the Jewish state.

It's that simple. And the comparison or the roping in of the leaders of the State of Israel while it's waging a defensive war with the lowest noncombatant casualty count apparently in recorded history, doing more to take care of civilians than anyone in history waging war, calling them war criminals, going after them, is now, in my opinion and in the opinion of the people in Israel, essentially moving what we call lawfare, which we at the ACLJ fight all the time, lawfare against Israel, into the realm possibly of active warfare. And it's using into it will using the powers of governments to sanction Israeli leaders, making it impossible to travel.

Harry can go more into the details of their powers here. But I'm just saying that they're moving it into it. And by the way, I don't think they could do this without we'll see how the Biden administration reacts against it's very much against America's interest.

But without the constant drumbeat comparing Israel's defensive actions to Hamas's terrorist actions coming out of this White House, I don't think the international anti-Israel community would have dared do such a thing. I want to read this quote. This is from Khan, who is I find the exact title here. Khan is the head of just had it. I see stress driving news content, a statement Monday. That is the ICC prosecutor.

Khan, Kareem Khan. This is the statement based on the evidence collected and examined by my office. I have reasonable grounds to believe the Netanyahu and Galat bear criminal responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on the territory of the state of Palestine in the Gaza Strip from at least 8 October 2023. So from at least the day after the horrible act of October 7th, where you saw thousands of Jewish teens, 20s kids, women, women and children, music festivals brutally murdered and slaughtered. And of course, the day after that, at least since the day after that, we've now had war crimes and atrocities. And it's Benjamin Netanyahu's fault.

Now, here's where it gets interesting. And Harry, I want to bring you into this because, like you said, Israel doesn't respect the ICC, doesn't really have anything to do with it. Same with the United States. However, when you have countries that do and you're looking for diplomacy and to look to get your message out there around the world, if you're Benjamin Netanyahu and there's an arrest warrant out for you, this is bad. Absolutely.

And it's bad really for two reasons. First, many of the nations of the world are members of the ICC. Therefore, they will respect ICC directives, meaning that they may indeed be prepared to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if he sets foot in their country and potentially if he flies in a plane that goes through their airspace.

That's number one. But number two, it's important to remember that there has been a combination or a collaboration of left-wing activists who wish to place Israel in the category of being the oppressor, the ultimate oppressor. And therefore, all of Israel's victims gain moral power, meaning that they are prepared to do everything possible to marginalize Israel. But I would also offer this commentary, which Jeff may or may not agree with, which is none of this would likely occur without the tacit support of many American officials, particularly in the Biden administration. The Biden administration increasingly has taken the view that Israel is basically a bad actor in responding to rape, to murder, to terrorism, to genocide. And so I think it's going to be up to the American people to respond to the Biden administration. I think you're right, and I think we can actually look back to the Obama administration and talk about sort of the BDS movement that came out of that, because the BDS movement was like the little version of this.

It was like the baby, the junior of, here's what we're going to do. We're just going to tell certain companies they should not be investing in Israel. They should pull their merchandise. If you're a Ben and Jerry's ice cream or whatever it is, we should push people into this part, to the boycott part, to the financial part. And now, Jeff, just a few short years later, we saw the impact of that. Now the move is to call for the arrest of the prime minister and really label Israel as a genocidal terrorist regime.

Well, Harry wasn't sure I was going to agree with him. I agree with him, except I'm going to triple down on what he said and what you're saying, Logan, which is to say, you know, the Biden administration, this could not have happened, but for the Biden administration using every bully pulpit it can to preach against Israel, to claim that Israel is a bad actor, to claim, to use absolute terrorist lies, propaganda coming from Hamas and other terrorist organizations to libel, issue blood libels against Israel and its army. And what we also know is that within the Biden administration, the people advising the Biden administration are themselves part of this global pro-terror, pro-Hamas network. They're doing the work of the genocidal jihadis here using the White House. And that is the only reason that the international community that has long sought to destroy Israel feels it has the privilege, the imprimatur to do so. It's because we have an American administration.

And just pause for a moment to recognize you contrasted it to October 7th, October 8th, just a couple of years ago, right before Biden came into office, peace was breaking out all over the Middle East. This is all a result of America turning its back. And America's policy under Joe Biden, as it was under Obama, is that simply the act of a Jew living in parts of Jerusalem or living in Judea or living in Samaria is criminal. They're calling that criminal. Understand, they're trying to outlaw Jewish lives. This is part of a genocidal front.

That's all it is. And the problem is it has nothing to do with, I will actually quote the Bible, Leviticus 19.15, I think about this all the time now. And we, ACLJ, should think about this. Do not, my translation from the Hebrew, lotasa avel bamishpat, do not pervert justice through the law. That's what they're doing.

They're using the law to pervert justice. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Jeff, so much for joining us.

And Harry, thank you as well. You couldn't have said it better, both of you. I think that this is a time you need to stand up for Israel. That's why we have this petition. I'm going to encourage you right now to go to ACLJ.org slash sign, be a part of it.

We also have some phone lines open. I want to hear from you, your thoughts on this, when you hear really the emotion and the strain coming from everyone's voice here. Because just a few years ago, the Trump administration was signing those Abraham Accords.

You had me emotionally on here in a positive saying, I never thought I would see this in my lifetime. The Middle East actually uniting in peace and in support of Israel. And here we are. And when the day they certified Joe Biden as the President, I said, remember this broadcast. You're going to hear more about Islamic terror in four years. You're going to forget that this is what it was like. And here we are. Give me your response to that. Does President Trump need to actually bring this up more?

That his success rate was so huge in this. Give us a call. 1-800-684-3110. Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. And now your host, Logan Sekulow. Welcome back to Sekulow. Hey, phone lines are wide open right now. I'd love to hear from you. I know you've had some heady content here, but give us a call. 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. I posed the question in the last segment. I believe this is something you can answer, which is four years ago under the Trump administration, we were seeing really the first time in our lifetime, a unification of the Middle East. The Abraham courts were being signed. Israel was being supported by the UAE and all these other countries. It was emotional time for me as someone who thought I would never see it.

Someone with the Jewish background. I thought I'd never see it as a supporter of Israel, as a Christian Zionist. I never thought it would happen. Then President Biden gets elected and here we are four years later on the brink of a world war. I mean, it's what it feels like. It's what it is because of what's going on in the Middle East. President Trump does bring up the success, but not near as much, in my opinion, as he should. When he takes that debate stage, do you want him to be talking about the success rate he had in the Middle East?

Because I don't know about you, but to me, the actions of what's going on in Israel obviously impact a huge number of Americans and voters because of obviously the protests that are happening on college campuses, all the things that have happened in support of Hamas here on our own home soil. Do you think President Trump needs to make this a bigger part of his campaign? I do. 1-800. If I was him, I would.

1-800-684-3110. Now, obviously in Iran, you had this helicopter crash that took down the President of Iran. Took him out. The butcher of Tehran is gone. But the ACLJ actually was involved in a case this week, today even, in Iran. I got to give you a big picture of the ACLJ work around the world. This is not something that's just here. I'm a broadcaster. I talk to you. We have teams everywhere.

We have my brother who is going to be in Europe and places I can't talk about coming up in the next few weeks. I don't want to give away what's going on every day because of how crazy some of the work is that we're doing here. And this came in, well, with the ACLJ, we filed an urgent complaint with the United Nations because there was a man, 20-year-old Arvind Gharamani, who was attacked by seven men back in November of 2022 and one of whom stabbed him. He then disarmed the man and stabbed him.

But guess what? Now Gharamani was convicted of being an accomplice to the intentional murder of a Muslim man. This was a Jewish man. One of how many that are left there?

Only about 8,300 Jewish citizens or people living still in the country of Iran. So he was sentenced to death and was actually supposed to be killed today. Just the facts. The ACLJ took action over the weekend.

That's right. We filed a special procedures report with the United Nations about a human rights violation. We brought up the issues of minority population in Iran, executions of Iran, and the issues that go along with this. This was something that popped up and that our team got right on when they were able to get involved and use the UN, use the power of the ACLJ status at the UN to get something out there. And this morning it was reported out of Iran. Huge deal. Big news, by the way.

And it couldn't happen without you guys. Yeah. With everything else that was going in Iran, there is a last minute postponement of his execution. There's a stay put in place. They have not said why. Typically in Iran you can only get a stay of execution if the other, the victim, in this case the attacker was what the Iranian courts call the victim, if their families somehow get involved and help out the individual who's slated for execution.

But as of right now, there's no information about why there was a stay of execution, only that the individual will live. We can put some pieces together. We took action.

We took action with the ACLJ through the UN. Again, why we have to be there. You may always question that. This is why we have to be there, because human lives are at risk. And today there was a stay on the execution. Now, does that mean it's all going to end up great?

Does not. But we will continue to work. But we can't do that without you. Support the work of the ACLJ today. I'm just going to encourage you. We have a few lines open also.

1-800-684-3110. I want to hear from you. I oppose that question. We have Rick Grenell joining us in the next segment. So I think that's important for people like Rick to hear this as well.

We're involved in the Trump administration. Do you think President Trump needs to make this a bigger deal? I'm going to take that in the last segment.

So that's only about 11 minutes. So stay tuned for that. But support the work of the ACLJ. We can't do this work around the world without you.

It's just the truth. We can't do any of this work. We can't do a radio show, a television show. We can't do any of this. Be streaming without your support.

So go to ACLJ.org. If you like this broadcast, that's how you keep it going. Welcome back to Secula. We are joined live by Rick Grenell.

Rick, I now want to get your initial feedback. Obviously, there's a big weekend in Iran, to say the least. You had that helicopter go down for whichever reason you want to believe. But the helicopter goes down, killing the President as well as other members, high level members of Iran.

As someone who was directly involved, the former director of national intelligence, someone who has been ambassador to some of these, not to Iran, but ambassador to other countries. What was your feedback when you first saw these sort of headlines sort of breaking over the weekend? And again, what does it mean for Americans? Well, the first thing I thought was, you know, the leader in Iran, Khamenei, is 85 years old. He just turned 85.

And he's frail. And there's been a lot of talk over the last couple of years as to who's going to replace him. Raisi as the President is basically the number two person to Khamenei. And he was handpicked by Khamenei.

Now, you'll hear a lot about the parliament or others having to put forward a Presidential candidate and a vote. But make no mistake, Khamenei picks that and everything else is just a show. And so now that the handpicked successor, the number two person, if you will, Raisi, the President under Khamenei, now that the President has been killed and the foreign minister, there is an all out battle and pure chaos going on.

Khamenei again is 85 and not on a day to day basis involved. And so he's got lieutenants and people that are trying to figure this out. But this is pure chaos. Now is the time, I think, for the international community to think about squeezing on the international front. The fact that this regime is hell bent on getting a nuclear weapon.

We've got to stop them. You see what they funded on October 7th inside Israel and know that if they had a nuclear weapon, it could get dramatically worse. Rick, I think about the power struggle that's going on within Iran right now. And I also think about their somewhat embarrassing attack on Israel, where they tried to show that they could launch these missiles and drones.

But none of them were able to fall within Israel's territory without being shot down by the Israelis. We we've always hoped for some sort of internal movement to be able to rise up and topple potentially the regime in Iran. And we saw when the Obama administration didn't really give the time of day to the Green Revolution and many other iterations that have gone since then. Do you think that there's an opportunity for the people of Iran to see real change with this power vacuum as well as the some of the embarrassing global headlines about the Iranians?

Or is it going to be necessary for a strong American leadership to be there for something like that to actually come to fruition? I think it's a little bit of both. It's a great question, Will.

I mean, the reality is, is that the Obama Biden team missed the Green Revolution. The moment that the Iranian people were taking to the street, you have to remember and I try to do this all of the time to not lump Iran into one. It's the radical regime that's controlling the government and then it's the people, because the people hate the regime. They just can't always voice it because they're very nervous about getting killed. They're systematic abuse, human rights denials.

So they have to be very careful. But given the tools like the Internet without government blockers, the people, when they get this information, can be extremely powerful. The that tool, that freedom of the Internet was cut off from them by the government during this moment, the Green Revolution, when they took to the streets under the Obama Biden administration.

And little was done by the Americans. I think we have to recognize we have the technology to take down Iran's government sensors. Why wouldn't we? Why wouldn't we just give the access to the people constantly? It's going to be a game back and forth of trying to stop the government's wall. They'll keep putting it up, but it's doable and it's much safer than having American boots on the ground or some sort of a coup or military operation.

Give the tools to the people in Iran. That's what should be happening. I think it should be happening now. But remember, half of the Obama Biden team is now in charge and it's the Biden Harris team. I don't think that they have the guts to actually do something in this moment.

This all just feels like the next generation and maybe worse now. You know, before it was, yeah, they cut off X, they cut off Twitter, which, by the way, needs it was Twitter at the time. This needs to also be addressed when it comes to the censorship of social media in America.

You've got to be very careful here. It's a slippery slope because we can see we can actually look at other countries where this happens and where it happens, not even like China, where obviously it's known. It happens in a place where they had the freedom to do it. And when a revolution started, they decided to just cut them off.

And now we've seen a ramifications of that 15 years later. Look, just like you said, Iran doesn't fit in a box, just like America doesn't fit in a box. Israel doesn't fit in a box.

We throw around these big terms. It's not like there aren't people protesting Netanyahu in Israel. That's happening as well. You know, there are people from all political sides in all of these countries. But the problem is when you have an Iran, not in Israel, honestly, if you have an Iran, like you said, it's a lot harder to speak. But we need to be very careful with that.

But there are options here. I don't know where Elon Musk's star link is and how he's going to get approved with with going into Iran. But we are having the ability now to spread our message a little wide. That's why when you see even platforms like rumble get started, start getting censored and cut off by entire nations like the United Kingdom say no more rumble because they're platforming people we disagree with. It becomes a little sketchy and we can only look to the future and you can look to the future by looking at what's going on in some of these other countries. Look, I've I've looked into this and I've visited I'll call it media properties that have been denied because of government sensors. And the reality is, is that in America we have the technology, not the government, but the private sector has the technology to get around every government sensor.

But it's a game of cat and mouse. We would adjust to get around the government sensors and then the government sensors would adjust to stop us. But there is a way if we had a 24 hour day, seven day a week center and it wouldn't cost that much to put our best people on making sure that government sensors around the world are not stopping the Internet. Now, think about what that would do in China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea. We spend a lot of money at the Pentagon to make sure that we have peace through strength and we concentrate on the strength part. I believe that one of the things that have been missing from the U.S. government for a very long time is a program on the outside to have people make sure our great Silicon Valley or in other places make sure that the government sensors don't stop the Internet from the people. Rick, we got word today that something we were expecting was going to happen has happened.

Now, the prosecutor of the ICC, Khan, has submitted applications for the arrest of Bibi Netanyahu, as well as the defense minister, Gallant. I just want to get your reaction to it. What should the United States response be, even if it won't be out of this administration? Well, this is an outside agency of the UN. It's got to be cut off.

It's got to be defunded. I don't like these global courts. They're all messing up. Jack Smith came from The Hague. He put the President of Kosovo in prison.

The guy is still there. It's all trumped up charges. Now he's going after Donald Trump. It's too political. And this guy at the ICC is now going after he's been trying to get Israel for a very long time. You'll notice he didn't say anything about the hostages. He just talks about the reaction to trying to get the hostages back. It's phony and we should just defund them and let them go off on their own.

Rick, thanks so much for joining us today. It is a big time here at the ACLJ. We are fighting on all different fronts, whether that's going on in Israel. Obviously, you heard about the man we are trying to currently stop his execution in Iran.

So that happens the weekend, obviously, that the President of Iran is dead. We still are working. The ACLJ is getting involved. We have a way for you to get involved, too. The chief prosecutor, as you heard of the ICC, the International Criminal Court, again, if you're new to this, they announce they're seeking the arrest warrants of Benjamin Netanyahu and others. Not only that, we have this Jewish man who they plan to execute in Iran today.

The ACLJ got involved in that. We're still going to continue to get involved. But we can't do it without you. You can get involved as well. I'm asking you simply, take action today. Sign the petition. I'm not asking you to give a donation.

If you can, great. If you can support the work, amazing. I know it's a tough time for a lot of people right now, but you know what's easy and free is to sign the petition.

So you can scan the code that's on the screen right now or go to ACLJ.org slash sign and defend Israel. Takes you a matter of seconds to go do this. So we'll be at a break in about a minute.

I encourage you to go do that or do it right after the show or do it right now on a second screen. If you have a phone, whatever you have, however you're watching this, be a part of it. Sign that petition, get involved. And also, this is the last call for calls.

1-800-684-3110. A few people are on hold. Two Kathys are on hold.

How about that? But we can have other people. We've got three lines open right now.

So I'm being honest. If you want to get your voice heard, this is a great time to do it. You've heard from Jeff Balaban from ACLJ Jerusalem. You've heard from Rick Grenell, Harry Hutchinson, obviously Will and I.

It's been a packed show. But now the most important voice in the room, as I always say, is you. So give me a call. Give me your comments.

Give me your thoughts. Whether it's these topics or something similar, whether it's about the election, I want to hear from you. 1-800-684-3110.

Kicking off a packed week. You can set the tone of where we go from here. 1-800-684-3110. Also, of course, sign that petition.

ACLJ.org slash sign S-I-G-N. Be right back with your calls and comments coming up. All right. Time to take your calls. I want to hear from you. 1-800-684-3110. Two lines open right now.

It's always important to hear from you. I saw a lot of comments coming in saying it's time to hear from the sons and daughters of Abraham. Let's go to that. Let's go. We're going to our first Kathy of the day. So, Kathy in Maryland. Sorry, Kathy in Kentucky. Hold on. You'll be next.

Kathy in Maryland. You're on the air. I'm here. I'm here.

Hey, thank you so much. Hey, I don't like Israel. I'm sorry.

And I don't like to see Israel, what's happening to Israel and what the Muslims are doing or the Palestinians. It's wrong. And I think we need to do something. Kathy reflects a lot of people's opinion. You hear her get emotional in this cause. I can't say that I haven't been there myself. And one of her comments was four years ago, we had peace in the Middle East. And here's where we are.

I feel you. I feel like we were there. I feel like we were the closest we had ever been in my lifetime and really in history, modern history.

The closest to some form of if you want to put, quote, unquote, peace in the Middle East. And under the Trump administration, there were the Abraham Accords or documentaries made about it. You and Mike Pompeo involved. You had our team involved at the ACLU. You have our attorneys involved to see that upended is really disheartening and to know that it probably could have been stopped is what makes it even harder. So, Kathy, I sympathize with you and your feelings and your emotions there.

They are not unjustified. In fact, they are they are what a lot of us feel on the inside, but maybe cannot put into words or cannot show that kind of emotion. We have to show emotion through strength here. Well, again, as as Kathy said, we cannot live as a last week, cannot live in fear. We got to remember, continue to move forward.

It is hard sometimes to go out of the house wearing Star of David wearing a cross, knowing that there are people. I had friends who ran into some other friends who was Israeli, who they never met before this weekend. And they were honestly kind of questioning their new found friends of Americans saying, I'm a little nervous to say I'm from Israel because they know what that means right now. And that even here in Tennessee and Nashville, that could go either way because there are the protests that you see on the streets, the pro Hamas protests. There are happening.

They're smaller here than they are in some places, but it is happening. Now, if you go out 40 miles, 30 miles into the country, you know what? That is the most brilliant place in the world because you'll see Israeli flags flying right there with American flags.

They know what's up. You go out into Shelbyville, into Lewisburg, Tennessee, these places that are pretty rural. And you will see Israeli flags flying prominently because they know God's point here. There was a tornado in the area outside of Nashville just about a week and a half ago. And a video that got picked up by news services was from a lady took it.

She and her husband were in her car. She was praying for protection, but she was filming out her window, her windshield, as they saw a tornado coming towards their vehicle. And what you saw flying on the side of the road was an Israeli flag in rural Tennessee. And as this lady is praying for her safety as this comes, this tornado comes, there is an Israeli flag there as well. And just there was so much to that that I was like that showcases a lot of beautiful things about rural America at a time like this. And then when it gets spread across to all the wire services are picking this up, showing this tornado. It also gives you a window right into where the heart of America is.

That's right. It is the heart of America. You're seeing that outpouring. It's just like when Israel took just a giant lead in that Eurovision song contest because the rest of the world, not just these people representing those countries, the people actually spoke.

When the people actually speak, they are overwhelmingly in support of Israel. The problem is the loudest voices in the room are often the smallest. And you've got to remember that. You've got to fight back against it. So we've got that petition. You can sign right now.

Aclj.org slash sign. Continue all calls. Kathy, number two from Kentucky, you're on the air.

Hello and thank you. As you were as you had Sean Spicer on your show last week, he was talking about how Trump would do well to just talk about his accomplishment and turn the mic off or tell the monitors. They could turn the mic off and let Biden go from there. And this would be a great opportunity for him to highlight the great accomplishments that he made, including with the Middle East and the policy with Iran. Yeah, I hope I hope you're right. I hope he does this.

He did not do this last time. I will be honest, the 2020 election, you can say whatever you want to say about it. But the debates in the debates and campaigning, the Middle East, much like the Supreme Court until very recently. And I think the Supreme Court only because of Roe being overturned with those were two topics that were never really discussed in campaigns. Clearly, they've done the data, they've done the search that said they don't poll well, they don't they don't mean anything. But when you look at the global chaos, my hope would be that people in the Trump campaign, they're watching this and going, you know what?

Logan, the ACLJ team, you are right. We need to celebrate the fact that we had us on the brink of peace in the Middle East. You had documents being signed, agreements being made between countries you never thought would be celebrating Hanukkah and doing things like that. But instead, my concern is that President Trump will go in to these debates and be typical President Trump in a debate. Very entertaining. We'll all walk away. We'll laugh. We'll scream and yell.

It'll be fun. But I want to make sure people need to remember because it's easy to go, well, 2020 with Covid, we have a lot of stuff going on. But other than that, which is obviously a big sticking point for a lot of people. There was some real movement happening around the world, really positive movement, and he needs to get back to that.

Remember that and make sure his team remembers that. Let's go to another call. Jill's calling, watching on YouTube in California here on the air.

Hey, guys, quick question. First, I missed Jay. I hate that Israel feels alone.

Jay deserves his time off, though. I hate that Israel feels alone, but I'm questioning. When I watched Congress last week, they overrode Joe's executive order to withhold aid and weapons promised to Israel.

I'm curious if they can do that. When when would that aid and weapons be going to them? And secondly, I remember that Jay stated many months ago, the ICC has no jurisdiction to arrest Netanyahu.

We talked about this in the previous segment. No jurisdiction to arrest within America or within Israel. However, as Professor Hutchinson brought up, a lot of diplomacy. Think about in Ukraine, when there was a war in Ukraine and you had that sort of tour where the President of Ukraine, Zelensky, went around making the rounds, showing up at the Grammys, doing all that, going to different countries, making that tour. Now, there was an arrest warrant out from the ICC for him. There are a lot of countries he cannot go to and visit. So you have a similar situation now for Netanyahu where he cannot take that diplomacy to other regions, because in theory, he could be threatened with arrest.

Right. And a lot of those countries may have the obligation because they are signatories to a treaty, the Rome Statute. So they would be violating a treaty with other countries if they didn't proactively help them.

If someone who had an arrest warrant came out into their country. Also, Jill, just to address the aid, the bill that was passed by Congress didn't get above a veto proof threshold. So therefore it wasn't going to be signed by the President because the executive branch doesn't like to be told how to do their actual function. But they have said there's going to be a billion more of aid going, but it's over a three year period. There's still a big fight to make sure that Israel gets what it needs right now. And so the pressure on the administration can't be let up. All right. Pray for our ACLJ team as they take some tremendous moves here in the next few weeks.

Again, some I told you about, some I can't tell you about. Support the work of the ACLJ with your prayers. By signing petitions and getting involved however you can, whether that's financially or not, just check out the great content at ACLJ.org. We do have that petition right now to support and defend Israel. I encourage everyone to do it. Get off the stream right now. Go do it. If you haven't subscribed, subscribe, like, share, do all that stuff. We'll be back tomorrow with more on secular.