Israeli police raid Palestinian bookshop in east Jerusalem, claiming incitement to violence

Israeli police raid Palestinian bookstore in east Jerusalem, detaining owners and confiscating books on conflict, citing incitement to violence.

Israeli police have raided a long-established Palestinian-owned bookstore in east Jerusalem, detaining the owners and confiscating books about the decades-long conflict. The police said the books incited violence.

The Educational Bookshop, established over 40 years ago, is a hub of intellectual life in east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed to its capital in a move not recognised internationally. Most of the city's Palestinian population lives in east Jerusalem, and the Palestinians want it to be the capital of their future state.

The three-story bookstore that was raided on Sunday has a large selection of books, mainly in Arabic and English, about the conflict and the wider Middle East, including many by Israeli and Jewish authors. It hosts cultural events and is especially popular among researchers, journalists and foreign diplomats.

The bookstore's owners, Ahmed and Mahmoud Muna, were detained, and police confiscated hundreds of titles related to the conflict before ordering the store's closure, according to May Muna, Mahmoud's wife.

She said the soldiers picked out books with Palestinian titles or flags, “without knowing what any of them meant.” She said they used Google Translate on some the Arabic titles to see what they meant before carting them away in plastic bags.

Police raided another Palestinian-owned bookstore in the Old City in east Jerusalem last week.

In a statement, the police said the two owners were arrested on suspicion of “selling books containing incitement and support for terrorism.”