Israeli police raided Palestinian-owned bookstores in Jerusalem and arrested the owners.
Photograph by Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian
Israel’s genocidal aggression against Palestinians continues despite a ceasefire in Gaza, as police stormed two locations of the Palestinian-owned Educational Bookshop locations in occupied Jerusalem last night, and arrested two of the owners, Mahmoud Muna and Ahmed Muna.
The pretense for the raids have the flimsiness we’ve come to expect—the Israeli police statement cited a children’s book as justification:
Detectives encountered numerous books containing inciteful material with nationalist Palestinian themes, including a children’s colouring book titled From the River to the Sea.
But underscoring the tenuousness of that reasoning, the arrested men’s lawyer noted that the charge has shifted from “inciting and supporting terrorism” to “disturbing the public order,” seemingly in an effort to legally defend ransacking two bookstores.
The cops spent about an hour tearing apart the shelves and storerooms. Mahmoud’s wife told The New York Times that the police “started throwing books off the shelves… looking for anything with a Palestinian flag.” It’s clear the police had no idea what they were looking for, since they had to use a translation app:
‘They used Google Translate on the books, and anything they didn’t like, they took,’ said Murad Muna, Mahmoud’s brother. ‘They even found a Haaretz newspaper with a picture of the hostages and asked what it was, saying it was incitement.’
The police also took books by Noam Chomsky, Ilan Pappé, Banksy, and others, and said they needed time to read them. They shouldn’t be too surprised by what they find, though, since “all books sold in the bookshop are imported into Israel … and pass inspection by Israeli authorities.”
The owners are to be held in detention before being placed under house arrest for a week.
The three Educational Bookshops are mainstays in Jerusalem’s cultural life since its founding in 1984 by Mahmoud’s father, Ahmad Muna. The shops mostly stock books in Arabic and English, and publish too, including the book Daybreak In Gaza: Stories of Palestinian Lives and Culture and the first edition of Granta to be released in Arabic.
Israel has targeted Palestinian intellectual and cultural life for a long time, and this latest attack on a bookstore and publisher is part of their larger, genocidal campaign against Palestine. The arrested men’s lawyer described the bookstore raids as “part of a new policy followed by Israeli police in Jerusalem to suppress freedom of expression and Palestinian thought, and prevent learning and education.”
Publishers for Palestine released a statement strongly condemning the persecution of these bookstores and calling for the publisher-booksellers to be immediately released:
The attack on the Munas and the store, an important centre that has promoted Palestinian culture and books in Arabic for forty years, is part of Israel’s practice of cultural erasure and its larger genocidal project against Palestinians.
…
Freedom of expression is a cornerstone of all just societies. There is no genuine security without the freedom to read, and no freedom to read without booksellers being able to carry out their work safely and freely.
Publishers for Palestine’s entire statement is here.
In the face of this violent intimidation, Mahmoud’s brother Morad is defiant, telling The Guardian, “They want to make us afraid. Not just us, they want to send a message to all Palestinian people … We are now going to reopen both branches of the bookshop.” True to his word, the bookstores were open Monday:
‘Today is overbusy,’ Mr. Muna said from behind the cash register. If the Israeli authorities were seeking to make Palestinians fearful, he said, ‘This is our answer.’
This attack on intellectual life is happening as Israel ramps up its raids in the West Bank, which have displaced over 40,000 people and killed many, including two women on Sunday: Rahaf Fouad Abdullah al-Ashqar and Sondos Jamal Muhammad Shalabi, who was eight-months pregnant.
