Emma Graham-Harrison & Quique Kierszenbaum
The Guardian / February 10, 2025
Raid on Educational Bookshop branches described by rights groups as attempt to create ‘culture of fear’ among Palestinian intellectuals.
Jerusalem – Israeli police have raided the leading Palestinian-owned bookshop in occupied East Jerusalem and detained two of its owners, arrests that rights groups and leading intellectuals said were designed to create a “culture of fear” among Palestinians.
Police officers ransacked two branches of the Educational Bookshop on Sunday afternoon, using Google Translate to examine the stock, then detaining Mahmoud Muna (41) and his nephew Ahmed Muna (33), on suspicion of “violating public order”.
Police cited a single children’s colouring book as evidence of incitement to terrorism, although CCTV footage showed them filling several black bin bags with books to carry away during the raid.
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On Monday a magistrate ordered another night’s detention and five days of house arrest for the two men. Police said they had seized eight books and needed time to investigate further, including reading the books.
“They took any book that had a Palestinian icon or Palestinian flag, and tried to translate it using Google Translate,” Morad Muna, brother of Mahmoud, told The Guardian. “They even took a copy of Haaretz [an Israeli newspaper] as part of the search.”
Other books examined by the police included the artist Banksy’s Wall and Piece, Gaza in Crisis by the US academic Noam Chomsky and the Israeli scholar Ilan Pappé, and Love Wins by the Canadian film-maker and photographer Afzal Huda.
Rights groups and prominent intellectuals called for the men’s immediate release, describing the arrests as part of a broader attack on Palestinian cultural identity.
Protesters gathered outside the courthouse on Monday morning to support the Munas, including the Pulitzer prize-winning author Nathan Thrall, who launched his book A Day in the Life of Abed Salama at the Educational Bookshop.
“[Israeli authorities] are creating a climate of fear for Palestinians in East Jerusalem,” he said. The arrests were particularly chilling because the bookstore was so well known, he added. “To go after someone who … has all kinds of connections in the diplomatic community and on the Israeli left, will send an even stronger message.”
The family-owned shop has been at the heart of cultural life in Jerusalem for more than four decades. Its broad collection of books by Palestinian, Israeli and international authors is popular with residents and tourists, and its cafe hosts regular literary events.
It has three branches – two on Salah al-Din Street, the main shopping road in East Jerusalem – which were raided on Sunday.
The third is in the American Colony, a Jerusalem hotel popular for decades with visiting leaders and celebrities from Mikhail Gorbachev and Tony Blair to Bob Dylan and Uma Thurman.
Diplomats from nine countries, including the UK, Brazil and Switzerland, attended the hearing. Germany’s ambassador to Israel, Steffen Seibert, said he was “concerned”, describing himself as a regular customer of the bookshop.
“I know … the Muna family, to be peace-loving proud Palestinian Jerusalemites, open for discussion and intellectual exchange. I am concerned to hear of the raid and their detention in prison,” he said in a statement on X.
Mahmoud and Ahmed Muna’s lawyer lodged an appeal to the district court to demand his clients’ immediate release, but it was rejected on Monday afternoon.
Nasser Oday described the detentions as an “extremely dangerous” attack on cultural life in the city and warned they would set a new legal precedent.
“(The arrests are) part of a new policy followed by Israeli police in Jerusalem to suppress freedom of expression and Palestinian thought, and prevent learning and education,” he told journalists after the hearing.
He placed the raid in a long historical line of attacks on books and education in the region, dating back at least to the 13th century Mongol attack on Baghdad.
The police came about 3pm and stayed for around an hour, ransacking shelves and the stockroom, Morad Muna said. Mahmoud’s 11-year-old daughter was helping in the shop at the time, and saw her father being taken away.
“They want to make us afraid. Not just us, they want to send a message to all Palestinian people,” Morad Muna said. The family decided to reopen the shops as soon as possible, and on Monday afternoon they were packed with new and long-term customers keen to show their support.
“I think this is the best reaction that we can do to such a situation,” Muna added.
A police statement said “detectives encountered numerous books containing inciteful material with nationalist Palestinian themes, including a children’s colouring book titled From the River to the Sea.”
All prosecutions relating to freedom of speech have to be approved by the attorney general’s office, but police can carry out arrests on suspicion of violations of public order on their own authority.
The rights group B’Tselem called for the immediate release of the two men, and an end to the persecution of Palestinian intellectuals. “The attempt to crush the Palestinian people includes the harassment and arrest of intellectuals,” the group said in a statement. “Israel must immediately release [Mahmoud and Ahmed Muna] from detention and stop persecuting Palestinian intellectuals.”
Last year police arrested and interrogated Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, a leading Palestinian legal scholar based at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. There have also been widespread detentions of Palestinian citizens of Israel who publicly criticised the war in Gaza.
Emma Graham-Harrison is The Guardian’s senior international affairs correspondent
Quique Kierszenbaum is a Jerusalem based reporter and photographer
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Israel shuts down two Palestinian bookstores in occupied East Jerusalem
Jake Johnson
Common Dreams / February 10, 2025
Human rights advocates and diplomats have condemned the raids and the arrests of the shops’ owners.
The leading Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem was among those voicing outrage Monday in response to an Israeli police raid on a pair of renowned Palestinian-owned bookstores in illegally occupied East Jerusalem over the weekend.
Haaretz reported that after confiscating books they claimed were “inciteful,” Israeli officers on Sunday arrested the owners of the two branches of the Educational Bookshop.
“The Educational Bookshop chain is the most well-known bookstore chain in East Jerusalem, with three locations on Salah al-Din Street and in the American Colony Hotel complex,” the Israeli newspaper noted. “The stores specialize in Arabic and English books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the history of Jerusalem, and they are well-known to researchers, diplomats, journalists, and tourists.”
Mourad Muna, the brother of Mahmoud Muna — one of the shop owners who was detained — said Israeli police “used Google Translate” to determine which books to seize. Among the books confiscated was one titled, “From the River to the Sea: A Colouring Book.”
“They even found a Haaretz newspaper with a picture of the hostages and asked what it was, saying it was incitement,” said Mourad Muna. “They took every book with a Palestinian flag on it.”
The owners were arrested on suspicion of “violating public order.”
B’Tselem said in response to the raid that “Israel is continuing its war on the entire Palestinian people.”
“The attempt to crush the Palestinian people includes harassment and arrest of intellectuals,” the group said. “Mahmoud and Ahmad Muna, well-known figures in the Jerusalem cultural scene, run the Educational Bookshop — a meeting point for cultural and political discussion. Israel must immediately release them from detention and stop persecuting Palestinian intellectuals.”
In the wake of the raid and arrests of the Educational Bookshop owners, Haaretz reported that “protesters gathered outside the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court” in a show of opposition ahead of a hearing on the detention of Mahmoud and Ahmad Muna.
“Diplomatic representatives from the Netherlands, the U.K., Belgium, Brazil, France, Switzerland, Ireland, Sweden, and the E.U. all visited the courthouse in Jerusalem where the hearing is due to take place, to show support for the bookshop owners,” the Israeli newspaper added.
Jake Johnson is a staff writer for Common Dreams
