Adam Boehler, the U.S. hostage envoy, speaks at the Jerusalem Post conference on May 19, 2025. (Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)
(JTA) — When news emerged in March that the United States was holding direct talks with Hamas, the American envoy in charge of those unprecedented negotiations received a tornado of blowback.
But when Adam Boehler spoke to a room full of Israel advocates on Monday, he was met with a warm welcome — even as he gave a full-throated defense of the talks with the Palestinian terror group and other groups holding captives.
“My role, as you may imagine, is focused on hostages around the world,” said Boehler, the Trump administration’s lead negotiator on American hostages, at the Jerusalem Post conference in New York City on Monday. “You may imagine the other side of that are generally not good people. They’re taking hostages. And so, for me, I think of it as my job to engage with people that in general are not good people.”
Boehler, who is Jewish, came to the conference on a wave of success: Last week, the Trump administration and Hamas negotiated the release of Edan Alexander, the last living Israeli-American hostage. Calling President Donald Trump a “peacemaker,” Boehler made the case for more negotiations and said the United States would be open to talking to Hamas again.
“What I find is any direct engagement, any engagement, is not weakness,” he said. “It does not mean you accept something or you let people off the hook.”
He added, “If Hamas wants to come forward and make a very legitimate offer that they’re willing to stand by, and release hostages, we’re always willing to listen to that.”
His appearance came as negotiations over another ceasefire and hostage deal are ongoing, and at a time when Trump has joined the calls for an end to the war that includes the captives’ release. Israel has also escalated its military campaign in Gaza — which Boehler, contrary to what many believe, credited with making a deal more likely. He said “the main force holding back a deal is Hamas,” which drew cheers.
“I do think we’re closer than we ever were, and part of that is because of movement that the IDF in Israel did on the ground,” he said.
He added later:
I think that Trump would love to be in a situation where these hostages are home. That doesn’t mean that Israel’s security needs to be compromised. There are two very different things, while they’re related because one could do it the wrong way. There are plenty of ways that we can think of to make sure that Israel is always strong, and its security is never compromised. And we push towards something that gets people home.
Boehler also nodded to the main argument of the Israeli government — that Hamas cannot be allowed to remain in power in the Gaza Strip, which has previously been a key reason ceasefire talks have failed.
“I think even they know, at this point, there’s not an immediate political future,” Boehler said. “It would be crazy, right? You can’t have people that go in and murder people come over. There’s no equation that has that.”
Boehler also spoke to the case of another Israeli hostage who was taken months before Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack — Elizabeth Tsurkov, a researcher who was taken hostage earlier that year in Iraq by the militant group Kataib Hezbollah (separate from the Lebanese terror group).
He called on the group to release her, threatening a military response if they do not, and for the Iraqi government to work harder on the issue.
“I think they were doing clearly not enough. I think they’ve stepped up efforts,” he said of the Iraqi government.
Regarding the group holding Tsurkov, he said, “They’re the only one that’s not in a world of hurt on the extremist side right now. That attention is going to turn eventually, and I think it is in their best interest to release her now, not to wait, because I think what you’re going to see if they wait is, they’re going to see the same thing that Hamas saw, the same thing that Hezbollah saw.”
