Embattled US hostage envoy hosts summit for global counterparts in Big Sky, Montana
Attendees, some of whom double-checked event was still on after Boehler withdrew nomination to become presidential envoy, to sign joint statement on collaborating against hostage taking
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
WASHINGTON — US hostage envoy Adam Boehler is hosting counterparts from around the world for a summit this week at a Montana resort to discuss collaborative efforts to combat hostage taking.
“The meeting at Yellowstone is to work together as sovereign nations to stop those that take hostages in their tracks. This area is one of the many beautiful places in the United States and is called Big Sky Country. It symbolizes freedom and President Trump’s promise to bring all Americans home,” Boehler told The Times of Israel.
The Times of Israel obtained an invitation sent to participants and confirmed with several countries that are sending representatives.
Some of them reached out to Washington over the weekend to confirm that the summit was still on, though, after the White House revealed on Friday that Boehler had withdrawn his candidacy to serve as special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, a Western diplomat told The Times of Israel.
Boehler is continuing to work on the issue, but with a lower-level title that doesn’t require Senate confirmation, which may have been an uphill battle after he became the first-ever US official to meet with Hamas members, to try and negotiate the release of five Israeli hostages with US citizenship who are still held in Gaza.
Those talks were coordinated with US special envoy to the Mideast Steve Witkoff, but Israel was not fully informed and directed its ire at Boehler, with Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer subsequently lobbying US officials for the hostage envoy to be sidelined, according to a senior US official.
Some in the Trump administration have insisted that Boehler planned to withdraw his candidacy before Israel leaked his secret direct talks with Hamas to the press on March 4. The White House said Friday that Boehler would continue to work on the issue as a Special Government Employee, and a US official told The Times of Israel that the shift would give him a broader mandate, as the post of presidential envoy comes with “red tape” that would have complicated his efforts to assist all detained Americans abroad.
But a second US official said Saturday that Boehler’s decision had more to do with wanting to avoid the stringent financial requirements that come with a Senate confirmation, as he continues to serve as the managing partner of a healthcare investment firm that he recently founded.
Boehler will also keep assisting Witkoff in the hostage talks with Hamas, the first US official said. On Friday, Hamas announced that it had agreed to a proposal to release American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander along with the bodies of the four other dual nationals, which a senior Arab diplomat told The Times of Israel was based on an offer that was discussed during Boehler’s direct talks.
Witkoff has dismissed the offer as a “non-starter,” while demanding that Hamas immediately release Alexander and accept a “bridge proposal” to extend the first phase of the ceasefire. Israel — which has refused to engage in talks regarding the terms of phase two — said Saturday that it was prepared to negotiate based on Witkoff’s proposal, which the US envoy revealed Sunday would free five living hostages, including Alexander.
Talks are expected to continue in Doha over the coming days, but Boehler is not involved in them, the senior Arab diplomat said.
This allows him to move forward with plans to host counterparts at his Big Sky, Montana, home at the Yellowstone Club. Invitations for the event, which went out over a month ago, stated that participants will sign a joint statement pledging to work together to thwart the practice of hostage taking around the globe.
Among those slated to send representatives will be Israel, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Austria. Representatives from Qatar and Egypt — which are mediating in the ongoing hostage talks together with the US — were also invited to attend but won’t be doing so, as the gathering is taking place during Ramadan, according to two sources familiar.
Israel’s hostage envoy Gal Hirsch received an invitation but is sending a lower-level aide from the Foreign Ministry to participate on his behalf, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel, who acknowledged that the choice not to send someone more senior had to do with Jerusalem’s frustrations with Boehler.
Boehler sought to address Israeli concerns regarding his talks with Hamas during a heated March 4 call with Dermer and in a flurry of interviews that he did on American and Israeli news shows on March 9, during which the US envoy insisted that he wouldn’t have agreed to anything beyond Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s parameters and that the Trump administration was committed to freeing all hostages — not just the American ones.
But as he was pressed in each interview about Israel’s objection to the direct talks with Hamas, he defended the practice, saying the US “is not an agent of Israel” in one and that he didn’t “really care” what Dermer thought in another.
Israel subsequently reached out to the Trump administration through multiple channels to express its disapproval, while still being careful to avoid publicly criticizing Washington, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel.
