Educational bookstores have been the cultural cornerstone of East Jerusalem for decades, with two media hosting diplomats, fetishing well-known authors, and providing readers with two sides of the story in the conflict between Israel and Palestinians.
This weekend, Israeli police raided the shop and concluded that books sold there, including children’s coloring books, arrested two of their owners, potentially inciting violence. Police said they caught many books in Sunday’s raid.
The stores were initially closed on Monday but later opened, despite a judge’s order for the brothers who owned the stores Mahmood Muna and Ahmed Muna to be detained until Tuesday morning, during a police investigation. They were also ordered to be arrested for five days after their release and were banned from returning to the bookstore for 15 days.
Murad Muna, the brother of two owners, reopened one of the stores on Monday afternoon, denied that the books sold there promoted violence. In fact, the books passed Israeli reviewers when they were imported abroad, he said.
“We think it’s political, not legal detention,” Nasser Oday, the lawyer for the two arrested men, said outside the court in Jerusalem after the hearing.
Police said in a statement that the shop was searched for books suspected of containing “incitement content.” It said the detectives “came to many books that contain stimulating material with nationalist Palestinian themes, including a children’s coloring book called “From Jordan to the Sea.”
The slogan “from rivers to sea” has long been a call for gatherings for Palestinian nationalism, often interpreted by the Israelis as denying the right to survive of their nation.
Mahmood Muna’s wife, Mai Muna, was in court on Monday as her husband was taken to the judge after spending the night in prison.
“They started throwing books off the shelves,” Ms. Muna said in a phone interview on Monday. “They were looking for anything with the Palestinian flag.”
But a few hours later, when Murad Muna tried to keep up with uninterrupted sales, one of the stores was stuck with customers and supporters, which he said was a sign of solidarity.
Mr. Muna said from behind the cash register: “Today is rich.” If the Israeli authorities try to scare the Palestinians, he said: “This is our answer.”
The arrests reflect how Israel tightens restrictions on Palestinians across the country. Since the Israeli attack led by Hamas on October 7, 2023, Israeli police have increasingly arrested Palestinian citizens of Israel to incite terror crimes on social media and shut down the issue of Haifa and Jaffa. Screening of films criticized by Israeli military or government.
The Education Bookstore Store is located in East Jerusalem, part of a city occupied by Israel from Jordan in 1967 and was later annexed. Israel considers all Jerusalem to be its undivided capital, but most of the residents of East Jerusalem are Palestinians, and the United Nations believes it has been occupied.
Over the years, the Muna Brothers’ shops hosted speeches, film screenings and book launches, including “Abed Salama’s” who won the Pulitzer Prize in another store they owned nearby in July last year one day”.
Its author, Nathan Thrall, was one of a small group of protesters on Monday, gathered at the entrance to the court during a hearing. He and his wife Judy heard about the arrests through social media and WhatsApp groups.
He said the arrest would send a “very strong message” to police authorities.
“It reflects a boldness, a kind of absolutely no consequence, they are totally impunity, they can follow the two most connected Palestinians in East Jerusalem,” Mr Thrall said.
David Grossman, a famous Israeli novelist, said he knew Mahmood Muna and visited his store. “His arrest is outrageous,” he said in a telephone interview.
Police have confiscated several books as part of the investigation. They did not have duplicate calls and messages on Monday about their titles, content or ways they were considered offensive.
Diplomats from nine European countries, plus the EU, attended a court hearing on Monday to show support for the Muna brothers. “I like many diplomats, like many diplomats, like browsing books in educational bookstores,” German ambassador to Israel Steffen Seibert said in a social media post. “I’m worried about hearing the raids and their detention in prison. ”
Israeli human rights groups of the Israeli Civil Rights Association said the arrest is another step in the efforts of Israeli authorities to intimidate and silence the Palestinians.
The group added in a statement that the attacks and arrests “cannot be interrogated with unprecedented trials and arrests related to expressions of crimes, nor can it be interrogated with making the Palestinian voice and any social initiative or any social initiative or activity more broadly The trends are separated.”
Eliana Padwa stood among the protesters in the court and said she had been visiting bookstores frequently since New York moved to Jerusalem.
Ms Padwa, 26, said: “They have been huge on my journey for many years. They have provided me with a safe space to understand this.”
