PALESTINE | FREE SPEECH

“Did I say Bookstores Blown Up”

Israeli Raid on the iconic Educational Bookshop in Jerusalem

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Last night, the Israeli occupation forces raided the family-owned Educational Bookshop in Jerusalem, arresting the brothers Ahmad and Mahmoud Muna. I stand in total solidarity with the owners of the bookshop and demand their immediate release. This raid on a bookstore is an unacceptable attack on free speech.

The Educational Bookshop on Salah al-Din Street in Jerusalem (Screen capture from bookstore promotional video, with permission)

Founded in 1984, the Bookshop has become an icon in East Jerusalem, offering a superb selection of English and Arabic language books that are difficult to find elsewhere in occupied Palestine. I have been frequenting it since I was a teenager, way back in 1988, during the First Intifada. As “collective punishment”, Israel had closed all the schools in the West Bank and Gaza for months at a time. Many of us therefore resorted to independent study. It was to the Educational Bookshop on Salah al-Din St. that my brother took me to buy the books to prepare for the GCE exam.

The Arabic-language part of the Educational Bookshop is right across Salah al-Din Street in Jerusalem (Photo by the author, Sep. 2023)