Lecturer Professor Amos Guiora, who directs Utah Law’s Bystander Initiative, has published a new book called “Enablers: Normalizing the Unimaginable.” The book calls for holding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s enablers accountable for what Guiora argues is Netanyahu’s campaign to destroy Israel’s rule of law and his failure to negotiate the immediate release of all hostages in the Gaza War.
In May 2022, during his mother’s Shiva (the traditional Jewish seven-day mourning period after a loved one’s burial), Guiora learned more about her life in post-Holocaust Hungary and planned to write a second edition of his book “The Crime of Complicity: The Bystander in the Holocaust,” drawing on her memories.
“It became clear, particularly regarding the Netanyahu government’s determined efforts to eviscerate the rule of law through what it called ‘judicial reform,’ that the shift would be so dramatic it would require an entirely new book,” Guiora recalled in an interview with International Policy Digest. “Then, in the aftermath of Oct. 7, 2023, and the government’s refusal to make a deal to release all the hostages, it became very clear that I could use my mother’s post-Holocaust experience as a segue into contemporary life in Israel.”
Guiora says the absolute necessity is holding enablers accountable.
“Over the course of four years while writing this book, I had access to the highest levels of former Israeli leadership and decision-makers, all anonymous, giving me extraordinary insight into politicians who are the ultimate enablers,” he says. “Anyone who enabled harm needs to be held accountable through a court of law. If this book advances the need to hold enablers, whether in Israel or elsewhere, accountable, then this will be my modest contribution to this critical discussion regarding the ecosystem of enabling.”
Learn more about Guiora’s work with the Bystander Initiative.