Israeli Police Raid Two Palestinian Bookshops in East Jerusalem

For many years, the Academic Bookshop has been a cultural cornerstone of East Jerusalem, its two retailers internet hosting international diplomats, feting outstanding authors and offering readers with either side of the story within the battle between Israel and Palestinians.

This weekend, the Israeli police raided the shops and arrested their two homeowners after concluding that books being offered there — together with a youngsters’s coloring guide — might incite violence. The police stated they seized a lot of books within the raids on Sunday.

The retailers have been initially closed on Monday, however later opened regardless of a decide ordering the brothers who personal the shops, Mahmood Muna and Ahmed Muna, to stay in detention till Tuesday morning amid a police investigation. They have been additionally ordered to be held underneath home arrest for 5 days following their launch and banned from returning to their bookshops for 15 days.

Murad Muna, a brother of the 2 homeowners who reopened one of many shops on Monday afternoon, denied that the books offered there promoted violence. In truth, he stated, the books handed Israeli censors after they have been imported from overseas.

“We imagine that this can be a political, not a authorized detention,” the lawyer for the 2 arrested males, Nasser Oday, stated exterior the courthouse in Jerusalem after the listening to.

In an announcement, the police stated the retailers have been searched on Sunday for books suspected of containing “inciting content material.” It stated detectives “encountered quite a few books containing inciteful materials with nationalist Palestinian themes, together with a youngsters’s coloring guide titled ‘From the Jordan to the Sea.’”

The slogan “from the river to the ocean” has lengthy been a rallying cry for Palestinian nationalism and is often interpreted by Israelis as a denial of their nation’s proper to exist.

Mahmood Muna’s spouse, Mai Muna, was within the courtroom on Monday as her husband was introduced earlier than the decide after spending the evening in jail.

“They began throwing books off the cabinets,” Ms. Muna stated in a telephone interview on Monday, describing the raids. “They have been searching for something with a Palestinian flag.”

However hours later, one of many retailers was jammed with clients and supporters as Murad Muna tried to maintain up with nonstop gross sales that he stated have been an indication of solidarity.

“Right this moment is overbusy,” Mr. Muna stated from behind the money register. If the Israeli authorities have been searching for to make Palestinians fearful, he stated, “That is our reply.”

The arrests mirrored how Israel is tightening restrictions on free speech and cultural actions for Palestinians throughout the nation. For the reason that Hamas-led assault on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Israeli police have more and more arrested Palestinian residents of Israel on costs of incitement to terror on social media and have shut down movie screenings essential of the Israeli navy or authorities in Haifa and Jaffa.

The Academic Bookshop retailers are in East Jerusalem, part of the town that Israel captured from Jordan in 1967 and later annexed. Israel considers all of Jerusalem to be its undivided capital however most East Jerusalem residents are Palestinians, and the United Nations has deemed it occupied territory.

Over time, the Muna brothers’ shops have hosted talks, movie screenings and guide launches, together with one final July for the Pulitzer Prize-winning “A Day within the Lifetime of Abed Salama” at one other store that they personal close by.

Its writer, Nathan Thrall, was amongst a small crowd of protesters on Monday who gathered throughout from the doorway to the courthouse through the listening to. He and his spouse, Judy, heard in regards to the arrests by way of social media and WhatsApp teams.

He stated the arrests will ship “a really robust message” about police authority.

“It displays a boldness, a way that there will probably be completely no penalties, that they’ve complete impunity, that they’ll go after two of probably the most effectively related Palestinians in East Jerusalem” Mr. Thrall stated.

David Grossman, a outstanding Israeli novelist, stated he knew Mahmood Muna and had visited his store. “His arrest is outrageous,” he stated in a telephone interview.

The police additionally confiscated a number of books as a part of the investigation. They didn’t return repeated calls and messages on Monday about their titles, content material or how they have been deemed offensive.

Diplomats from 9 European international locations, plus the European Union, attended the courtroom listening to on Monday to point out help for the Muna brothers. “I, like many diplomats, get pleasure from shopping for books at Academic Bookshop,” the German ambassador to Israel, Steffen Seibert, stated in a social media put up. ”I’m involved to listen to of the raid and their detention in jail.”

An Israeli human rights group, Affiliation for Civil Rights in Israel, stated the arrests have been one other step in efforts to intimidate and silence Palestinians by the Israeli authorities.

In an announcement, the group added that the raids and arrests “can’t be separated from the unprecedented variety of interrogations and arrests of Palestinians over expression-related offenses, nor from the broader development of silencing the Palestinian voice and any social initiative or exercise.”

Standing among the many protesters on the courthouse, Eliana Padwa stated she had visited the bookstores usually since transferring to Jerusalem from New York.

“They’ve been enormous in my journey all through the years, politically, studying about Palestine,” stated Ms. Padwa, 26. “They supplied a secure house for me to study this, to ask questions.”