22/02/2025
Bookselling is not a crime
I first visited the English-language Educational Bookshop in, I think, 2009 and met Mahmoud Muna. The shop took copies of the book Camp Shatila - a writer's chronicle by Peter Mortimer, published by Five Leaves, to distribute. This was Peter's account of a writer's residency in the Shatila Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut. This project led to the establishment of a children's theatre group there and a visit by the group to the North East, where Peter lives, where they toured the play they had co-written with him. The children were from a school run by UNRWA, three of whose schools and a training centre in East Jerusalem have, like the bookshops, just been raided - in fact closed down, by the Israeli authorities.
Mahmoud's family later took over the bookshop at the American Colony Hotel, the rather up-market hotel where diplomats, journalists, NGO leaders and, not sure why, rock stars stayed. And spies, joked Mahmoud when he was at our shop recently! It was a terrific bookshop, as was the coffee at the hotel, to be sipped slowly while people watching. You could watch all those people buying up the bookshop stock, which ranged from novels to expensive academic books on the Middle East. Between them the shops had everything you needed to read about the Middle East and Israel-Palestine in particular.
These shops were and are the main outlets for English language books in the area. Mahmoud came to our shop in September, with the Jewish journalist Matthew Teller, to talk about their jointly edited book Daybreak in Gaza. Nobody who was at that event is likely to forget it. Mahmoud was his usual calm self, and despite the destruction of Gaza and despite the collapse of sales at his bookshops due to local poverty and the collapse of tourism, he remained hopeful for the future.
On 9 February 2025, Mahmoud and his nephew Ahmad Muna were accosted by undercover Israeli police. They were arrested at the Educational Bookshop, handcuffed and taken to prison. Hundreds of books were initially confiscated. Two days later, Mahmoud and his nephew Ahmad were released but under house arrest, forbidden to go to their shop.
The nature of these arrests is scary. Every day, booksellers, librarians, publishers and writers are censored in a hundred different ways in almost every country around the world. Some are jailed, some see their work banned and others are driven out of business by subtler means. We must rally to protect the freedom to read, which means the freedom to run a bookshop and a school library, for example. Booksellers and librarians are not criminals.
Mahmoud and Matthew's publisher, Saqi, together with Pluto Press, set up a collective of supportive booksellers and publishers to support the existence of the bookshops. There were immediate costs, but we know from Mahmoud when he came here that the economics of the businesses are shaky, for the reasons given above. So this fundraising appeal is about the long term. So far, over 700 people have contributed, and over £36,000 raised. This project and the statements from Saqi have been worked out with the Muna family.
Find out more about the Educational Bookshop and ways you can support here. www.gofundme.com/f/jerusalems-educational-bookshop-emergency-appeal
Five Leaves Bookshop will be donating 10% of their takings today to the Educational Bookshop.
We are not for a moment suggesting that this is the most important event in Israel-Palestine, we mourn all the deaths and loathe this war. But we and the Munas are booksellers and we recognise their shops as democratic, educational spaces of value to all the citizens of Israel-Palestine, and to international visitors. Our trade association, the Booksellers Association, spoke for us all when saying "The Booksellers Association fundamentally believes that all bookshops should be respectfully allowed to function as peaceful spaces of intellectual refuge and freedom of expression, and the booksellers who facilitate them be protected physically, mentally and operationally from all forms of aggression and suppression. We condemn any persecution of any bookseller who is simply doing what their vocation requires of them - creating safe spaces, facilitating respectful conversations and representing different perspectives."
Ross Bradshaw
Bookselling is not a crime: fundraiser to support the Educational Booksh… Saqi Books needs your support for Jerusalem’s Educational Bookshop Emergency Appeal
