The Department of Culture Studies condemns Mahmoud and Ahmed Muna's arrest

On 6 November 2024, the Department of Culture Studies at Tilburg University hosted an on-campus book talk for the collection Daybreak in Gaza: Stories of Palestinian Lives and Culture (2024). The talk was led by the editors Matthew Teller, a journalist, and Mahmoud Muna, the owner of one of the most well-known bookstores in Jerusalem.

This week, news broke that on Sunday 9 February 2025 two branches of Mahmoud Muna's bookstore in occupied East-Jerusalem were raided by Israeli police. Mahmoud Muna and his nephew Ahmed Muna were arrested in the Educational Bookshop while many books were confiscated. This story was covered in NRC, The Guardian, DW, BBC, The New York Times, and other outlets.

The Department of Culture Studies condemns this raid upon a literary space widely celebrated throughout Jerusalem as a hub of democratic culture. The Educational Bookshop is a place where Israelis and Palestinians regularly interact with one another and with the international community, and its repression by the state runs counter to the peaceful resolution of the conflict. To the contrary, this censorship of speech and cultural life will only increase political friction, and represents another worrying turn in the censure of Palestinian life.

We celebrate the release of Mahmoud Muna and Ahmed Muna even as we urge that the materials confiscated by police are returned to their rightful place on the bookshelf. As members of Tilburg University and the broader European community, we are invested in the exercise of free speech and recognize that only through open discussion and a recognition of all cultural identities will peace be achieved. The memory of confiscating and destroying books looms large in our history, and we condemn the censorship of literature in all forms and at all times.

Sincerely,

The Department of Culture Studies