Israel’s arrest of Jerusalem’s booksellers is a grave, self-defeating error
Releasing Mahmoud and Ahmad Muna is a moral imperative and strategic necessity
The Educational Bookshop on Salah Ad-din Street in East Jerusalem, as captured in November 2011. (Google Maps)
By arresting my dear friends and colleagues, Mahmoud and Ahmad Muna, owners of The Educational Bookshop in Jerusalem, Israeli police evoked dark periods in Jewish history. The Sunday arrest of these booksellers is a strategic miscalculation that undermines the very security it purports to uphold.
Too often, Israel’s supporters lament the absence of nonviolent Palestinian leaders willing to engage. Yet, when those leaders stand before us — committed, thoughtful and courageous — Israel persecutes them. The arrest of the Munas is an indictment not of them, but rather of our own broader failure to recognize our potential partners when they are right in front of us.
Because Mahmoud and Ahmad Muna are precisely the kind of Palestinian civil society leaders that Israelis should be engaging with, not silencing. Their voices, intellect, integrity and commitment to truth-telling represent a path forward — not a threat. And yet, instead of uplifting their example, authorities criminalized them. This is a grave mistake.
On Sunday night, police raided the Muna’s bookstore — a vital cultural hub — under suspicion of public disorder and incitement. Officers emptied shelves, confiscated books, left the space in shambles, and arrested the Munas.
The Educational Bookshop is a beacon of intellectual exchange and rigorous debate. Since 2013, through my work at Encounter, we have brought Jewish leaders — across political, religious and ideological spectrums — to engage with the Munas and other Palestinian civil society leaders. Their perspectives can be challenging, even provocative, especially to the Zionist ear, but they are always honest and willing to push their own boundaries.
Since I first met Mahmoud and Ahmad many years ago, I have visited the Educational Bookshop more times than I can count, drawn back each time not just by the books and conversations, but by their warmth, integrity, generosity and honesty. These moments spent at their small, well-stocked store on bustling Salah al Din Street in Jerusalem have shaped my understanding of Jerusalem and its layered narratives.
My relationship with the Muna family has deepened in ways that transcend professional connections; they have become what we call in Hebrew, chvrei nefesh— soul friends. Through countless conversations, shared meals, and moments of deep honesty, they have invited me to redraw the lines between “us” and “them.” And in doing so, I have come to realize that Ahmad and Mahmoud are our people. Not because we agree on every historical point or policy outcome, not because they are Zionists or I a Palestinian nationalist. But because at the core, we share a fundamental understanding that the only way forward is a future built across these chasms, built on dignity, dialogue and mutual recognition for all.
The Munas embody the very spirit of engagement and intellectual openness that we should be fostering, not silencing. Their commitment to open conversation does not constitute incitement; it is the very essence of what a free society should aspire to protect. And a bookshop that is unapologetically Palestinian and features Palestinian voices, narratives, culture, heritage and identity should not be criminalized.
The Munas’ arrest is a reminder that the belief that Israeli security can be achieved through the suppression of Palestinian identity, culture and heritage is misguided and strategically short-sighted. We cannot erase a people’s connection to their land, their history, or their longing for self-determination. We Jews, of all people, should understand this truth intimately. We, who continue to commemorate the destruction of our Temple thousands of years after the fact, and enshrined our national yearning for freedom in Israel’s national anthem, are intimately familiar with the foolish attempts to sever a people from their identity.
This conflict is, at its heart, a struggle between two peoples with deep, unyielding attachments to the same land. That attachment is not a crime, nor should it be treated as one. Criminalizing intellectual and cultural businesses and institutions only deepens division and radicalizes those who witness such injustice. The arrest of the Munas sends a chilling message: that even those who engage in nonviolent civic life and intellectual discourse are not safe.
This is not how responsible democracies behave. It is how belligerent, regressive societies operate.
Jews and Israelis must ask ourselves: do we want to foster an environment where nonviolent Palestinian leaders are marginalized and criminalized, pushing others toward radicalization? Or do we want to create conditions where engagement, understanding and coexistence are possible? The path to peace does not run through the doors of a ransacked bookshop. It runs through dialogue with the very people Israeli authorities have chosen to silence.
On one of my trips to the Educational Bookshop, I purchased David Grossman’s book, Writing in the Dark: Essays on Literature and Politics. In it, he writes: “Not infrequently, we tell ourselves that we are taking a certain course of action, committing an act of violence or brutality, only because we are in a state of war, and that when the war is over we will go right back to being the moral, upstanding society we used to be.”
To paraphrase Grossman, sometimes out of primal instinct, we may be unaware how deeply our wartime behaviors have seeped into our general psyche. Yet, by reversing our perspective, and confronting the narratives that are most challenging to us, can we look inside ourselves, see our blindness, and explore new ways for us to change our circumstances.
Instead of sitting under house arrest for a crime they did not commit, Mahmoud and Ahmad Muna should be sitting with Israel’s most forward-thinking leaders, politicians, scholars, and activists. They should not be prisoners of a misguided ill-advised act infringing on their freedom. They are not a threat; they are partners in forging a shared future. Their immediate release is not just a moral imperative, it is a strategic necessity.
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