The real crime: incitement against free speech and freedom of information

On Sunday of this week, I went to visit the Educational Bookshop in downtown East Jerusalem with a group of Jews from my synagogue called the Zion Community . This visit was organized by members of the synagogue to express empathy and solidarity with the owners of the bookshop, who had been arrested last week on false charges of “disturbing the public order” by selling books which someone felt should not be allowed to be sold in Israel. At first the charge was “incitement to violence” but this was changed by the police once they discovered that they needed a search warrant from the state prosecutor’s office for this crime.

If fact, there was no incitement to violence and no disturbance of the public order. There was no crime committed at all, except the crime of the police conjuring up a story to arrest two of the owners of the bookstore, probably based on the idea that someone didn’t like some of the books that they sell. After two nights in jail, the owners were released to two weeks of house arrest, so that they cannot go back to their stores for two weeks.

We met with Morad, the brother of one of the owners of the bookstore. He does not work at the bookstore but is pitching in while his brother and nephew are at home. We sat with him in the beautiful seminar room downstairs in this lovely three-storey bookstore, which also sells coffee and snacks, and has lots of books to browse and buy in English and other languages, and some room to sit and work on your computer. (Across the street is another bookstore with books in Arabic and not far away, is their third bookstore, next door to the famous American Colony hotel.) Morad spoke to us in perfect Hebrew (and English) about what happened. He is a friendly and communicative person, with a lovely smile, and he sends his four children to the Hand in Hand bilingual and bicultural school in West Jerusalem, where Jews and Palestinians learn together (the only school of its kind in Jerusalem but part of a network of such schools in various cities in Israel).

Morad told us that this bookstore, which has been operating in Jerusalem for forty years, is the only one of its kind in Jerusalem. In addition to selling books on Israel, Palestine and the Middle East, focusing on Middle Eastern culture and the Arab-Israeli conflict, it hosts forums and seminars in the room we were sitting in, and sometimes in larger rooms at the American Colony hotel. The books which they sell are mostly research-based and published by highly respected institutions and publishers world-wide.

They cater to lots of foreign and local journalists, as well as to many international diplomats. About 8-10 diplomats showed up at their arraignment in a Jerusalem court on the day of their arrest. Since this “fake arrest” and the confiscation of some of their books (most of the 300 confiscated books were returned to them), many articles have been written about them and their bookstore in the Israeli and international press. All of the articles are critical of what was done to them by the Israeli police and rightly so. In addition, a petition against this crime of the police was published in the Hebrew Haaretz newspaper last Friday, with 3000 signatures of prominent Israeli citizens, including many authors.

Why did the Israeli police do this? No one really knows for sure, but it is clear that this is part of a trend of incitement against free speech and free access to information by the government of Israel. In recent weeks, another bookstore in East Jerusalem, which sells only Arabic books, was closed down completely by the police. The government has been conducting a concerted campaign against certain journalists and newspapers, like Haaretz, which are too critical of their policies. Recently, the government has prevented any arm of the government from advertising in Haaretz, one of Israel’s veteran and widely respected Israeli newspapers. The Minister of Communications, who is a fanatic right-wing Likudnik, is also trying to close down Israel’s public broadcasting station because he and his pals in the government don’t appreciate their independent views on government policy.

This whole episode reminds me of some similar acts in other countries, like the USA, where in states like Florida and Texas, books are being banned if they don’t fit in with the current TRUTH of the current authoritarian government. Israel’s own version of an authoritarian government is copying and borrowing these ideas from the American president and his extreme right-wing colleagues. It brings me back to the idea that I wrote about last week, concerning “Trumpenyahu”, the symbiosis of these two neo-fascist leaders. They are clearly influencing each other and their societies very much. They both think that only they have “the truth” and that anyone who disagrees with them is not only wrong, but is a traitor and should be dealt with.

Will this trend continue in Israel? Unfortunately, the answer is yes, as long as this current anti-democratic government survives. This is part of their destruction of democratic norms, as in their judicial “reforms” or overhaul, and in their legislative blitz to create more and more laws which serve only their ideology and not the common good. The most glaring example is the beginning of the development of a new law, which would tax non-profit organizations (mostly the ones that the government does not like) 80% of the funds which they receive for their projects and programs from governments overseas. This is clearly a draconian proposal designed to damage or destroy many civil society and human rights organizations in Israel.

This is just another reason why there is growing anger and astonishment with the current government in Israel. It may not be the main reason, but it is one of a growing list of grievances of the people against the government.

The main grievance, however, remains the dissatisfaction with government policy on redeeming ALL of the hostages still held by Hamas (and other organizations) in Gaza, in exchange for the release of large numbers of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons. At the moment, the government seems to be reneging on the three-stage agreement it signed, when it was pushed by President Trump and his envoy Steve Witkoff, to do so at the last moment.  PM Bibi Netanyahu has made it very clear that he does not want to end the war and therefore does not want to progress to stage two. This would leave many hostages to die in Gaza. At the moment, Witkoff and Secretary of State Rubio are pushing him to keep going, but Ben Gvir and Smotrich (and others) are telling him that he will have no government if he goes on to Stage Two and ends the war!

This means that if Trumpenyahu actually continue on to stage two and bring home all the hostages, this could bring about the long-awaited fall of this terrible government. Or another possible scenario is that Bibi and company renew the war and abandon the remaining hostages, which could lead to a massive revolt by the people of Israel against its government. This too could bring down this evil government and lead to new elections.

In any event, only when this government finally ceases to exists (the sooner the better), will we stop worrying about which bookstores we can visit, and which newspapers or radio or TV journalists we are allowed to read.

The real crime was not selling the wrong books. The real crime was the attempt by the government to close down bookshops which contain books which they do not like.