February 12, 2025 (Haaretz Editorial) – On Sunday, police raided two branches of the Educational Bookshop chain in East Jerusalem. The officers went through the shelves, read the titles of books in Arabic using Google Translate, confiscated dozens of the books, hinted that an edition of Haaretz English could be considered incitement and arrested the store’s owners, Mahmoud and Ahmed Muna. Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court Judge Chavi Toker approved the warrant for the raid on the bookshop.

Police, in their request for the warrant, said they suspected possible identification with a terrorist organization and possession of inflammatory material. But they never sought permission from the prosecution, which is required by law to open an investigation into suspected incitement.

Consequently, at the bail hearing, they changed their suspicions to “undermining the public’s safety.” The police sought to keep the two booksellers in jail for no less than eight days. The most accusatory evidence they produced was a coloring book for children titled “From the River to the Sea,” of which they found one copy in the store’s warehouse. Incidentally, you can also buy this book on Amazon for 4.99 pounds sterling.

Another Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court judge, Gad Ehrenberg, rejected the police’s request, but decided to keep the two men in jail for another day so police could continue their investigation. Jerusalem District Court Judge Eli Abravanel reprimanded the police for not obtaining permission to open an incitement investigation, but nevertheless decided not to intervene in the lower court’s decision. The two therefore spent another night in jail.
The result is that due to the police’s aggressive and undemocratic behavior and the judges’ cowardice or naïveté, Mahmoud and Ahmed Muna spent two nights in jail. This is even more absurd given the fact, which emerged following their release on Tuesday, that the police never even bothered questioning them again, despite keeping them in jail.
Educational Bookshop isn’t just another book store; it’s a glorious Jerusalem institution. There is no diplomat, journalist or scholar of Jerusalem who isn’t familiar with the store and its intellectual treasures. Evidence of this is the fact that the bail hearing at the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court was attended by diplomats from nine countries, plus the European Union.

The raid and the arrests show how deeply the rot has propagated within the police and the legal system. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara must tell the police that their behavior was illegal, and that if they want to open an incitement investigation, they can find thousands of calls for mass murder, obliterating the Gaza Strip, starvation and many other incitements for war crimes on social media, in interviews with politicians and in rabbis’ sermons.

Anyone who nevertheless wants to find a ray of light in this story can find it in the fact that despite all the incitement, dehumanization and lies, over the last two days, dozens of Israelis have visited the Muna family’s bookstores to buy books and show solidarity.

 

The above article is Haaretz’s lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.

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