Police raid leading bookstore in East Jerusalem, arrest owner, seize books
Raid alarms foreign diplomats as court keeps booksellers in custody for another day on charge of disrupting public order by selling texts of ‘incitement and support for terrorism’
Israel Police officers raided a prominent bookstore in East Jerusalem that focuses on Palestinian identity and the Arab-Israeli conflict, confiscating books and arresting the owners of the chain on Sunday night.
Police accused Mahmoud Muna and Ahmad Muna, who run the Educational Bookshop, of selling texts containing “incitement and support for terrorism,” citing one children’s coloring book they found titled “From the River to the Sea.”
Law enforcement requested that the booksellers be held in custody for a further eight days, but the court on Monday granted an extension of only one day.
Officers came to the Educational Bookshop’s two stores with a court-granted search warrant Sunday night and arrested the two booksellers, who spent the night at police headquarters in the Russian Compound.
Haaretz quoted the brother of one of the owners claiming the officers used Google translate to determine which books — most of which are in Arabic — to confiscate.
“They took any book they didn’t like,” he reportedly said. “They even saw a Haaretz newspaper with images of hostages, asked what it was and said it was incitement. They took any book with a Palestinian flag.”
The owners are formally suspected of disrupting public order rather than of incitement, since the latter charge requires approval by prosecutors.
Ahead of the hearing, a number of European and South American diplomats representing eight countries crowded into the courthouse hallway.
Steffen Seibert, Germany’s ambassador to Israel, came out against the arrests on social media platform X and declared himself a patron of the East Jerusalem establishment.
“I, like many diplomats, enjoy browsing for books at Educational Bookshop. I know its owners, the Muna family, to be peace-loving proud Palestinian Jerusalemites, open for discussion and intellectual exchange,” he said.
I, like many diplomats, enjoy browsing for books at Educational Bookshop. I know its owners, 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.
— Steffen Seibert (@GerAmbTLV) February 10, 2025
A small group of demonstrators, including left-wing politicians and prominent authors, gathered outside the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court on Monday morning to protest the arrests.
Hadash-Ta’al chair Ayman Odeh told The Times of Israel during the demonstration that he viewed the raid as a sign of “weakness” on the part of law enforcement authorities.
“There is a Palestinian nation, and they [the police] want to deny that idea, so it has now gotten to the point where they are raiding bookstores,” Odeh said. “The only thing missing now is for them to burn the books and dance around [the fire]; that will be their next step.”
Author Nathan Thrall also showed up at the protest. A long-time friend of the owners, he held an event in the Educational Bookshop to showcase his 2023 book “A Day in the Life of Abed Salama,” which recently won a Pulitzer for general nonfiction.
The Educational Bookshop in East Jerusalem is full with shoppers in solidarity a day after the Israel Police raided the Palestinian store, arrested its owners and confiscated books. They dropped the charges of incitement but still detain them for ‘disturbing the public order’ pic.twitter.com/ZfnkBttfY3
— David Issacharoff (@davidiss) February 10, 2025
Protesters announced plans to demonstrate in front of the Educational Bookshop later on Monday in light of the owners’ extended detentions.
