The frightening paranoia of this government is becoming absurd

“Books are the enemies of totalitarians” (Churchwell, quoted by Sorge, “Where Books are Burned, in the End, People Will Burn,” Policy Center for the New South, November 2019). The article about the raid on Mahmoud Manu’s bookstores in East Jerusalem recalls the attacks on Jewish bookstores by the Nazis and the subsequent bonfires of burning books.

According to the article in “The Live Blog” in The Times of Israel (Summers and TOI staff, “Police said to raid leading bookstore in East Jerusalem, arrest owner, seize books,”10 February 2025), the police raided two bookstores in East Jerusalem, owned by noted author Muna, and confiscated or damaged any book they thought was inciteful.

The police didn’t even know the content of the Arabic books they confiscated and used Google Translate to find something to seize. (Keep in mind this is a bookstore in East Jerusalem where Arabic is the local language. ) And horror of horrors, the officers found a copy of Haaretz with a photo of the released hostages, which they claimed was incitement. Will the same police come to my home to confiscate my books because I subscribe to Haaretz, because I have dictionaries in Arabic, or because I have language texts from a time when I once studied Arabic? The paranoia among members of this government is frightening.