- Amos Guiora criticized Israeli leaders at a Jerusalem rally for hostage neglect.
- Guiora called for legal action against government "enablers" of hostage abandonment.
- He emphasized the importance of prioritizing hostages, citing personal connections to victims.
SALT LAKE CITY — An Israeli native and Utahn had sharp words for the leaders of his homeland at a rally Saturday in Jerusalem, demanding the return of the Israeli hostages remaining in Gaza.
Amos Guiora, a law professor at the University of Utah, where he directs the Bystander Initiative, centered his pointed remarks on "enablers," those in the Israeli government he sees as allowing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to "abandon" those Hamas still holds captive.
"I see their actions as a criminal offense for which they must be held accountable in a court of law. It is not enough to say, 'History will judge them.' They must be prosecuted today," Guiora said in the speech delivered in Hebrew. "Without the safety net the enablers provide Netanyahu, he would not have been able to commit the crime of abandonment."
He spoke on day 645 since Hamas-led militants abducted 251 people from Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. As of Saturday, 50 remained — 20 living and 30 dead, according to the Jerusalem Post.
Honored to speak
Guiora, who also spoke at a rally in Haifa last month, made clear to the Deseret News that he spoke in his capacity as a private person. He called it an "honor beyond honor" to be invited to speak at the rally sponsored by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.
"For me, it's my modest contribution to the hostages and the hostage families," he told the Deseret News by phone before the speech. "If what I have to say helps in any modest way to push the envelope, it's the least we can do. These demonstrations are no fun."
Guiora said it's important to keep hostages front and center because government leaders have "normalized that 50 Israelis are held deep in the tunnels and life goes on."
Demonstrations urging the government to reach a deal to free all the remaining captives held in Gaza occur regularly in Israel.
A week ago, tens of thousands joined hostage families in several cities, including the main one in Tel Aviv, organized by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, according to The Times of Israel. Protesters there typically accuse Netanyahu of extending the war in Gaza to appease his far-right coalition partners and seeking to avoid accountability for his alleged failures around the Hamas attack, per the Times.
"I have no interest in discussing Netanyahu himself — that I leave to others," Guiora said in the speech.
Netanyahu and President Donald Trump met in Washington this past week but were not able to reach a deal for a ceasefire in the 21-month war between Israel and Hamas.
Even if a truce is reached, Netanyahu has vowed to keep fighting if necessary until Hamas is destroyed. The militant group, meanwhile, has conditioned the release of the remaining hostages on Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, a stipulation Israel has been unwilling to accept, according to the Associated Press.
Pointing an accusing finger
For the past 10 years, Guiora has been researching the question of bystanders and enablers, resulting in several books including "The Crime of Complicity: The Bystander in the Holocaust" and "Armies of Enablers: Survivor Stories of Complicity and Betrayal in Sexual Assaults."
"To me, it's all about the enabler. That drives my bus," he said before the speech.
Enablers are not perpetrators, but are in positions to prevent harm and make a conscious decision not to act. Guiora, a former lieutenant colonel in the Israeli Defense Forces Judge Advocate General Corps, sees Israeli government ministers and members of Knesset, the country's parliament, as enablers.
"They are the people who give the prime minister absolute freedom of action," he said. "They enable the prime minister to commit an extremely serious crime: the crime of abandoning the hostages."
And he named names during his speech.
Guiora worked with one of the government ministers when he served as the military legal advisor in the Gaza Strip.
"I respected him in the past. Today, I point an accusing finger at him and say: 'You are guilty of enabling a crime by not preventing the abandonment of the hostages,'" he said, while naming several others.
"Each of these public officials swore an oath of allegiance to the state of Israel, and through their actions, they are violating that sacred oath," he said. "October 7th and the way the government and public officials have conducted themselves bring us, for the first time, to understand that our judicial system must address this issue.
"The hostages and their families deserve that we do everything in our power to bring the enablers — those who allow the prime minister to commit the intolerable crime of abandoning the hostages — to criminal trial," Guiora said.
"We are obligated to act now. If we don't, history will judge us, too."
Close to home
One of the hostages, 36-year-old Elkana Bohbot, comes from the town where Guiora lives.
"Everywhere we go in our town, there are pictures of him," he said.
Bohbot, a married father of a 5-year-old son, was abducted Oct. 7 from the Nova Music Festival where he was part of the production team.
Last month, Rebecca Bohbot urged the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva to use its power to bring her husband and other hostages home as soon as possible.
"Life and dignity cannot be held hostage by any conflict. Six hundred eighteen days of silence, fear and pain have passed," she told the council. "We know from testimonies from released hostages the inhumane conditions in which the hostages live: hunger, chains and isolation."
