Vandalising books and putting the mark of Cain on shops — still not recognising the “processes”* that are taking place here?
Every day in recent times another red line has been crossed. We’ve crossed the social media one a long time ago, and now it’s the turn of the books.
By Netta Ahituv • Translated by Sol Salbe
Books, ladies and gentlemen, books
On Sunday police raided two well-known bookshops in East Jerusalem. Every journalist, diplomat, historian or tourist is familiar with Mahmoud Munna’s shops. These are shops with rare historical materials and fascinating books in English and Arabic. Among other things, the store also has books about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and when the police raided the place, they used a translation app for books in Arabic that seemed suspicious to them (if it weren’t tragic, it would be comical). One of the witnesses told Haaretz reporter Nir Hasson that during the search, the police also encountered a picture of the abductees in the newspaper Haaretz, asked Mahmoud what it was and claimed that it was incitement (is this something we’ve heard before? Oh, yes! from the minister of communications).
The brave coppers, who are battling books, wreaked havoc in the place and arrested Muna and his nephew, who remained in custody all night for a baseless offence of “suspicion of disturbing public order”. The scandalous warrant, which screams all about fascism, was issued by Judge Havi Toker, who a few months ago released from detention a man who carried a sign with the inscription: “Master of the Universe, kill Gali Baharav-Miara [Referred to as the attorney-general in the local parlance but her role is equivalent a Westminster Solicitor-Geneal] and her supporters.” That suspect was praying for the murder (for natural reasons, of course), but the judge asserted that it was a selective enforcement of the law. The bookseller did not pray for the murder of anyone, but was arrested on a warrant signed by her. Selective enforcement, did we say?
Anyone who knows Muna or the bookshops he runs is shocked by the arrest. He is not a dangerous or hawkish person, but a sociable man and a lover of books, a friend of many Jews. Every day in recent times another red line has been crossed. We’ve crossed the social media one a long time ago, and now it’s the turn of the books.
We are in the midst of a stormy public debate about whether or not it is possible to compare Israeli abductees to Holocaust survivors. Either way, we are certainly in the midst of “processes”: the sight of books that have undergone a pogrom and the marking of stores as dangerous just because their owners are of a certain nationality are “processes”. The police only added a small modern touch, because after all it is 2025 — a translation app.
”Processes” an allusion to the following — [From Wikipedia]: As Deputy Chief of Staff, [Yair] Golan made a speech on Holocaust Day in 2016 in which some say he drew a parallel between Europe in general and Germany in particular in the 1930s and current day Israel, by saying “If there is one thing that is scary in remembering the Holocaust, it is noticing horrific processes which developed in Europe — particularly in Germany — 70, 80, and 90 years ago, and finding remnants of that here (in Israel) among us in the year 2016.”
