“There is a dire and urgent need to get as many hostages out of Gaza as swiftly as humanly possible,” says Avi Mayer, a top pro-Israel commentator.
“The majority of Israelis feel at this point there is almost no cost too high to bring back those hostages who are still alive,” adds Mayer, immediate past editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post.
He spoke to the AJP Tuesday, less than two weeks after Hamas murdered six Israeli hostages hours before Israel Defense Forces troops would have rescued them from more than 10 months in captivity.
Mayer, who is considered a leading millennial voice in Israel and the Jewish world, with a monthly audience of millions on X (formerly Twitter), will be the guest speaker at the Jewish Philanthropies of Southern Arizona Men’s Night Out event on Oct. 29.
Israeli and U.S. negotiators cannot trust Hamas, a terrorist organization, he says, adding, “Lying is not a bug but rather a feature of how the group operates.”
But Hamas did release 105 Israeli hostages during a ceasefire agreement in November, which Mayer sees as a good indication it will release more hostages if its conditions are met.
Freeing Palestinian prisoners in exchange for hostages can have dire long-term ramifications for Israel, Mayer says, noting that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the Oct. 7 massacre, was himself one of more than a thousand Palestinian prisoners released in the 2011 deal for IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.
Another sticking point for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been maintaining an Israeli presence in the Philadelphi Corridor, the strip of land between Gaza and Egypt that Hamas used to smuggle weapons, cash, and personnel. But Mayer says that in recent days, Netanyahu has shown more flexibility on ways to achieve surveillance of that border.
There is “near unanimity” in Israel on the need to meet Hamas on its terms and deal with the consequences later, he says.
“I think the imperative of saving a single life is overwhelming,” Mayer says.
Born in New York, Mayer was raised in Maryland and Israel and now lives in Jerusalem. He has held leadership roles with many leading Jewish organizations, including serving as managing director of global communications and public affairs at the American Jewish Committee and as the international spokesperson of the Jewish Agency for Israel. He has worked for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs; the Embassy of Israel in Washington, D.C.; Hillel International; and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He has also been a spokesperson for the IDF. International news networks often call on him to discuss Israel, the Middle East, and the Jewish world. He is currently co-chair of the advisory board of Global Jewry and is a member of the ROI Community.
At the Men’s Night Out event, Mayer will present “Journalism Under Fire: The Media Battle Around Israel,” discussing how editors reshape the reports journalists submit from the field through headlines, photo choices, and rewriting the text, to the point that reporters have thanked him when he’s publicly called out their news organizations.
