Israeli bookshop to sell Charlie Hebdo latest issue

The Steimatzky bookstore chain announced on Tuesday that one of its stores would sell a limited number of copies of the latest edition of France’s “Charlie Hebdo” magazine and donate the proceeds to the families of the massacre victims.

The bookstore’s branch in the Ayalon mall in Ramat Gan will sell several hundred copies of the magazine next Monday at 5 p.m. for NIS 35 ($8) apiece. Customers will not be allowed to order in advance, and will be limited to two copies per person.

The latest edition of the magazine — which features a cartoon of the prophet Muhammed on its cover holding a “Je Suis Charlie” sign, and bearing the caption “All is forgiven” — was sold out within minutes across France last Wednesday, prompting the magazine to increase its print run to 5 million.

The cartoon drew fierce criticism from across the Muslim world, and led to anti-Charlie Hebdo mass rallies in Muslim countries.

Hamas, for its part, also denounced the new cartoon, asserting that the publication was part of a global conspiracy by an anti-Muslim “Zionist lobby.”

The new issue of Charlie Hebdo followed a January 7 massacre by Islamic extremist brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi at the offices of the magazine. Ten Charlie Hebdo employees and two policemen were killed in the attack. The brothers declared the shooting was revenge for the weekly having published cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. They were both later killed in a shootout with police.

The killings, which came just before the slayings of a policewoman and four Jewish shoppers at a kosher grocery in the French capital by another Islamist gunman, drew global condemnation and prompted a unity march in Paris last Sunday, led by some 50 world leaders and diplomats, that was attended by over 1.6 million people.