Israeli police have raided the leading Palestinian-owned bookshop in occupied East Jerusalem and detained two of its owners, arrests that rights groups and leading intellectuals said were designed to create a “culture of fear” among Palestinians.
Police officers ransacked two branches of the Educational Bookshop on Sunday afternoon, using Google Translate to examine the stock, then detaining Mahmoud Muna, 41, and his nephew Ahmed Muna, 33, on suspicion of “violating public order”.
Police cited a single children’s colouring book as evidence of incitement to terrorism, although CCTV footage showed them filling several black bin bags with books to carry away during the raid.
On Monday a magistrate ordered another night’s detention and five days of house arrest for the two men. Police said they had seized eight books and needed time to investigate further, including reading the books.
“They took any book that had a Palestinian icon or Palestinian flag, and tried to translate it using Google Translate,” Morad Muna, brother of Mahmoud, told the Guardian. “They even took a copy of Haaretz [an Israeli newspaper] as part of the search.”
Other books examined by the police included the artist Banksy’s Wall and Piece, Gaza in Crisis by the US academic Noam Chomsky and the Israeli scholar Ilan Pappé, and Love Wins by the Canadian film-maker and photographer Afzal Huda.
Rights groups and prominent intellectuals called for the men’s immediate release, describing the arrests as part of a broader attack on Palestinian cultural identity.
Protesters gathered outside the courthouse on Monday morning to support the Munas, including the Pulitzer prize-winning author Nathan Thrall, who launched his book A Day in the Life of Abed Salama at the Educational Bookshop.
“[Israeli authorities] are creating a climate of fear for Palestinians in East Jerusalem,” he said. The arrests were particularly chilling because the bookstore was so well known, he added. “To go after someone who … has all kinds of connections in the diplomatic community and on the Israeli left, will send an even stronger message.”
The family-owned shop has been at the heart of cultural life in Jerusalem for more than four decades. Its broad collection of books by Palestinian, Israeli and international authors is popular with residents and tourists, and its cafe hosts regular literary events.
It has three branches – two on Salah al-Din Street, the main shopping road in East Jerusalem – which were raided on Sunday.
The third is in the American Colony, a Jerusalem hotel popular for decades with visiting leaders and celebrities from Mikhail Gorbachev and Tony Blair to Bob Dylan and Uma Thurman.
Diplomats from nine countries, including the UK, Brazil and Switzerland, attended the hearing. Germany’s ambassador to Israel, Steffen Seibert, said he was “concerned”, describing himself as a regular customer of the bookshop.
“I know … 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,” he said in a statement on X.
Mahmoud and Ahmed Muna’s lawyer lodged an appeal to the district court to demand his clients’ immediate release, but it was rejected on Monday afternoon.
Nasser Oday described the detentions as an “extremely dangerous” attack on cultural life in the city and warned they would set a new legal precedent.
“(The arrests are) part of a new policy followed by Israeli police in Jerusalem to suppress freedom of expression and Palestinian thought, and prevent learning and education,” he told journalists after the hearing.
He placed the raid in a long historical line of attacks on books and education in the region, dating back at least to the 13th century Mongol attack on Baghdad.
The police came about 3pm and stayed for around an hour, ransacking shelves and the stockroom, Morad Muna said. Mahmoud’s 11-year-old daughter was helping in the shop at the time, and saw her father being taken away.
“They want to make us afraid. Not just us, they want to send a message to all Palestinian people,” Morad Muna said. The family decided to reopen the shops as soon as possible, and on Monday afternoon they were packed with new and long-term customers keen to show their support.
“I think this is the best reaction that we can do to such a situation,” Muna added.
A police statement said “detectives encountered numerous books containing inciteful material with nationalist Palestinian themes, including a children’s colouring book titled From the River to the Sea.”
All prosecutions relating to freedom of speech have to be approved by the attorney general’s office, but police can carry out arrests on suspicion of violations of public order on their own authority.
The rights group B’Tselem called for the immediate release of the two men, and an end to the persecution of Palestinian intellectuals. “The attempt to crush the Palestinian people includes the harassment and arrest of intellectuals,” the group said in a statement. “Israel must immediately release [Mahmoud and Ahmed Muna] from detention and stop persecuting Palestinian intellectuals.”
Last year police arrested and interrogated Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, a leading Palestinian legal scholar based at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. There have also been widespread detentions of Palestinian citizens of Israel who publicly criticised the war in Gaza.
