Trump envoy further inflames Israel concern about talks with Hamas
Adam Boehler says Hamas was willing to lay down its arms in exchange for a long-term truce, adding that the US has interests that are separate from Israel’s.
President Trump’s hostage envoy suggested Hamas was willing to lay down its arms in exchange for a truce and said the US has interests that are separate from Israel’s, in comments on Israeli television that further frustrated some Israeli officials already concerned by his direct talks with the militant group.
Adam Boehler said his main goal in the talks was the release of the last American hostage who remains alive in Gaza.
But he also told Israeli public broadcaster Kan News that Hamas had offered a five- to 10-year truce under which it would release all hostages in exchange for all Palestinian prisoners, lay down its arms, allow the US and others to ensure the removal of its vast tunnel system, and withdraw from politics.
Boehler called the proposal “not a bad first offer” and suggested a new deal could come together in a matter of weeks.
The decision to directly negotiate with Hamas, a US-designated terrorist organisation, and Boehler’s positive remarks about its proposal drew criticism from Israeli officials, who said the move weakened the country’s negotiating hand.
“He sought to conduct negotiations to free American hostages on his own accord,” far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told Army Radio Monday morning, calling the endeavour “an utter mistake”.
Avi Dichter, agriculture minister from Netanyahu’s Likud party and a former head of Israel’s internal security services, Shin Bet, said Boehler had shown a lack of understanding of Hamas’s goals.
“Whoever thinks Hamas will part from its weapons doesn’t know Hamas, its ideology or its strategy,” Dichter said in an interview with Kan.
“Israel will need to decisively defeat them in a war.”
Boehler’s remarks added to confusion about US policy.
Trump has signalled no similar priority to broker a permanent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
He has allowed Israel to cut off aid and electricity to the enclave with no public pushback. He also has repeatedly said the decision to end the war rests with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Any disagreement with the Trump administration carries risks for Netanyahu’s position in the negotiations with Hamas, his relationship with the country’s main weapons supplier and his ability to hold together a governing coalition that depends on right-wingers who are opposed to a deal.
“Israel has a lot invested to portray that Washington and Israel are on the same page,” helping Netanyahu to keep his coalition together and carry out tough negotiations with Hamas, said Shalom Lipner, a former senior official in the Israeli prime minister’s office.
“Anything that suggests rifts in that firmament complicates all those tasks.”
During the Biden administration, Israeli officials often complained that Hamas would harden its negotiating stance whenever it saw daylight between Washington and Israel.
“It allows Hamas to celebrate driving a wedge between the US and Israel,” said Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington, of Boehler’s talks with the Islamist militant group.
The sideline talks involved Boehler accompanied by other US officials and several senior officials with Hamas, Arab and Hamas officials said.
They discussed a US-backed proposal which would see Hamas release 10 living hostages, including American-Israeli Edan Alexander, in exchange for extending the ceasefire by 60 days, the officials said.
The US officials also told Hamas that they were primarily seeking to understand if Hamas’s leadership was interested in a wider deal to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, while also discussing the transition to the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, the Arab and Hamas officials said.
During the talks, Hamas officials said they would be willing to consider putting their offensive weapons under external custody and release all hostages, in exchange for a framework to end Israel’s restrictions on trade and travel in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as a truce for up to 10 years with Israel, Arab and Hamas officials said.
Hamas officials, however, said the militant group and other Palestinian factions would be against a complete disarmament even under a deal that includes a path to a two-state solution, the officials said.
In the main negotiations over the war, Hamas continues to press for talks over a permanent end to the fighting and releasing all the hostages, though it has been willing to discuss an interim deal to free American hostages in exchange for an extension of the ceasefire, the Arab and Hamas officials said.
How closely Boehler had co-ordinated the talks with Israel isn’t clear, but Israeli officials complained that the Trump administration official was making offers to Hamas when Israel would ultimately have to pay the price.
Boehler said that his negotiations with Hamas were known to the White House and that Israel hadn’t been kept in the dark. He wasn’t clear in his interviews whether Trump personally approved the direct talks.
The National Security Council didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Boehler acknowledged in an appearance on CNN that Netanyahu’s lead negotiator and lieutenant, Ron Dermer, had expressed concerns about the direct US talks with Hamas.
The US envoy acknowledged the concerns and suggested Dermer may have worried he would come away from the meetings with Hamas with the idea that “they don’t have horns growing out of their head” and are “pretty nice guys”.
Boehler added that the US has its own interests to pursue and that he was trying to understand Hamas’s end goal.
“I understand the consternation and the concern,” he said of his call with Dermer. “At the same time, we’re the United States. We’re not an agent of Israel. We have specific interests at play.”
After some Israeli officials expressed frustration with the comments, Boehler wrote on X that “Hamas is a terrorist organization that has murdered thousands of innocent people. They are BY DEFINITION BAD people.”
He said his comments had been misinterpreted.
On Monday, Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said Hamas had no choice but to disarm and leave the Gaza Strip.
“I believe they have no alternative,” Witkoff said in an interview on Fox.
“There’s no logical or rational choice for them other than to leave. If they leave, then I think all things are on the table for a negotiated peace deal. That’s what they are going to need to do.”
Amit Segal, a political commentator, said Israeli officials and right-wing opinion makers hadn’t attacked Trump himself for Boehler’s talks with Hamas, because they perceived the initiative to be less a calculated effort to run around Israel and more of a spontaneous endeavour, a characteristic of the current administration.
“It’s, let Trump be Trump,” Segal said.
Boehler’s direct talks with Hamas also further fuelled the perception among some families of Israeli hostages that getting their loved ones out of captivity is a bigger priority for Washington than Israel.
Some wondered in public remarks Monday whether a second citizenship was needed to help save their relatives.
“There are two very sad things here. One is that the US is talking to Hamas, breaking an important precedent,” said Chuck Freilich, a former deputy national security adviser in Israel and senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank.
“The really sad thing is that the families are putting more faith in the American president than the Israeli prime minister to bring home Israeli hostages.”
One live American hostage and the bodies of four others remain in Gaza.
A total of 59 hostages have yet to be returned from the enclave, as many as two dozen of whom Israel believes might still be alive.
With the direct outreach, it appeared the US was testing whether Hamas would seriously consider releasing hostages as a sign of good faith.
If not, Trump has suggested he would let Israel restart the war in Gaza.
The Trump administration has turned its whole focus to the swift return of hostages, threatening military action if Hamas doesn’t release them by an unspecified date.
Wall Street Journal
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