Supporters visit an Educational Bookshop, after Israeli police raided two Educational Bookshops and made arrests, in East Jerusalem, Feb. 10, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad

“Israeli Police Raid Palestinian Bookshops, Another Step in Tightened Restrictions,” is the headline over a New York Times news article.

The headline is itself a fine example of how the Times, instead of just reporting the news, pushes its own interpretive framework onto a story. The risk with that is that sometimes the interpretive framework is tendentious, or, at best, highly selective.

In this case, the Times spins the arrest as evidence of “how Israel is tightening restrictions on free speech and cultural activities for Palestinians across the country.” You wouldn’t know it from reading the Times article, but the event could just as easily and accurately be portrayed as evidence of how even Jerusalem Arabs who appear to be mainstream are involved in glorifying terrorists.

The Times seems to be ridiculing the idea that “books being sold there — including a children’s coloring book — could incite violence.” It mentions a police statement about “a children’s coloring book titled From the Jordan to the Sea,” noting, “The slogan ‘from the river to the sea’ has long been a rallying cry for Palestinian nationalism and is usually interpreted by Israelis as a denial of their country’s right to exist.”

The South African Jewish Report has an account from June 2024 of the same book being removed from shelves of South Africa’s biggest bookstore chain after an outcry.

It reports that “The color-by-number book, which is aimed at children between ages six and 10, says that it ‘introduces young readers to the key concepts driving and sustaining Palestinian resistance.’ This includes a page dedicated to the concept of intifada, which encompasses two violent Palestinian uprisings in which about 1,000 Israelis were killed by suicide bombings in the early 2000s.”

According to the South African Jewish Report, “The book then goes on to tell children that people who die for the Palestinians are ‘martyrs — heroes who have a special place in Palestinian society.’ Children can then color in a picture of the late academic, Refaat Alareer, who described all Jews as ‘evil.’ In a BBC interview, he described the Oct. 7 attack as ‘legitimate and moral.’ He compared the attack to the Warsaw ghetto uprising and accused Israel of fabricating evidence of sexual assault by Hamas on Oct. 7.”

Children “are also given a picture of ‘protest icon’ Ahed Tamimi, who has been arrested twice by Israel, the second time when she posted on social media in November 2023, ‘Come on settlers, we’ll slaughter you. What Hitler did to you was a joke. We’ll drink your blood and eat your skulls.'”

For comparison’s sake, imagine if, after the Boston Marathon bombing, Boston police had found a Muslim-owned bookstore with a coloring book encouraging children to color in a picture of the “martyr” bomber. Or imagine if, after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, New York Police found a Saudi or Afghan-owned bookstore in Brooklyn or New Jersey encouraging children to color in a picture of Osama Bin Laden or the “martyrs” who perpetrated the attack on the World Trade Center. Or imagine if, heaven forbid, the bookstore owner was a Trump-supporting conservative Christian or Jew selling coloring books glorifying as heroic martyrs perpetrators of violent attacks on news organizations, such as the one on the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland.

Reasonable people could debate whether arresting the bookstore owner would be the right move, but surely at least some journalistic curiosity about why a bookstore owner would be promoting violent extremism would be warranted, alongside any alarm about “tightened restrictions on free speech.”

The Times article online has two corrections now appended:

Corrections were made on Feb. 10, 2025

An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to the relationship of the two men who were arrested at the Educational Bookshops. They are relatives, but not brothers.

An earlier version of a photo caption misstated which man was which, based on incorrect information from the news agency. Mahmood is seated in court at left and Ahmed is on the right.

It’s easy enough for the Times to correct those details.

On the more basic issue of whether the underlying story fits a narrative of “restrictions on free speech” or one of “Jerusalem Arabs glorifying terrorists,” Times readers may, alas, have to wait somewhat longer for a correction.

Ira Stoll was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.