For many years, the Academic Bookshop has been a cultural cornerstone of East Jerusalem, its two shops internet hosting international diplomats, feting outstanding authors and offering readers with each side of the story within the battle between Israel and Palestinians.
This weekend, the Israeli police raided the shops and arrested their two house owners after concluding that books being bought there — together with a kids’s coloring e book — might incite violence. The police mentioned they seized quite a few books within the raids on Sunday.
The retailers had 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 had been additionally ordered to be held beneath 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 house owners who reopened one of many shops on Monday afternoon, denied that the books bought there promoted violence. In reality, he mentioned, the books handed Israeli censors once they had 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, mentioned exterior the courthouse in Jerusalem after the listening to.
In a press release, the police mentioned the retailers had been searched on Sunday for books suspected of containing “inciting content material.” It mentioned detectives “encountered quite a few books containing inciteful materials with nationalist Palestinian themes, together with a kids’s coloring e book 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 normally 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 mentioned in a cellphone interview on Monday, describing the raids. “They had been on the lookout for something with a Palestinian flag.”
However hours later, one of many retailers was jammed with prospects and supporters as Murad Muna tried to maintain up with nonstop gross sales that he mentioned had been an indication of solidarity.
“At this time is overbusy,” Mr. Muna mentioned from behind the money register. If the Israeli authorities had been searching for to make Palestinians fearful, he mentioned, “That is our reply.”
The arrests mirrored how Israel is tightening restrictions on free speech and cultural actions for Palestinians throughout the nation. Because the 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 crucial of the Israeli army or authorities in Haifa and Jaffa.
The Academic Bookshop shops are in East Jerusalem, part of 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 e book 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 throughout the listening to. He and his spouse, Judy, heard concerning the arrests by social media and WhatsApp teams.
He mentioned 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 mentioned.
David Grossman, a outstanding Israeli novelist, mentioned he knew Mahmood Muna and had visited his store. “His arrest is outrageous,” he mentioned in a cellphone 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 had been deemed offensive.
A number of international diplomats attended the courtroom listening to on Monday to indicate assist for the Muna brothers. In a social media submit, the German ambassador to Israel, Steffen Seibert, known as them “peace-loving, proud Palestinian Jerusalemites, open to dialogue and mental trade.”
An Israeli human rights group, Affiliation for Civil Rights in Israel, mentioned the arrests had been one other step in efforts to intimidate and silence Palestinians by the Israeli authorities.
In a press release, 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 pattern of silencing the Palestinian voice and any social initiative or exercise.”
Standing among the many protesters on the courthouse, Eliana Padwa mentioned she had visited the bookstores usually since transferring to Jerusalem from New York.
“They’ve been large in my journey all through the years, politically, studying about Palestine,” mentioned Ms. Padwa, 26. “They supplied a protected house for me to study this, to ask questions.”
