A Lake Stevens man was being held in an Israeli prison Monday after being arrested at a West Bank refugee camp over the weekend.
Mike Johnson, 52, was taken into custody around 9:45 a.m. local time Saturday and is reportedly being held at Ramle Prison in Israel.
Johnson and two other men arrived at the Tulkarem refugee camp around 7 a.m. Saturday amid heavy Israeli military presence, according to International Solidarity Movement, a group that promotes the Palestinian cause. About 15 girls, ages 9 to 11, were crying, apparently frightened by the Israeli army’s sound grenades and rubber bullets.
The men told the Israeli military they were going to escort the girls home. As the men tried to leave the camp, military officials stopped them and said they did not have permission to be there. They were arrested and taken into custody, International Solidarity Movement said.
Also arrested were another American, Matteo Bernal, 22, of Kentucky and Palestinian Osama Qashoo, 21.
The International Solidarity Movement is described on its Web site as a nonviolent movement of Palestinian and international activists working to raise awareness of the struggle for Palestinian freedom and to end the Israeli occupation. Rachel Corrie, the 23-year-old Evergreen State College student who died in March after she was struck by an Israeli-driven bulldozer, was affiliated with the same movement.
Johnson worked for Boeing for 20 years, most recently at the Everett plant, before he was laid off in March, said his sister, Claudia Alfred of Gig Harbor. Johnson spent some time living in a kibbutz in Israel when he was 20, and was compelled to return there to fight what he felt were human rights offenses on the West Bank, she said.
"I am going to help in whatever way I can to reduce the harm caused by the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza," he wrote before he left on April 19. "I’m going because I understand what the situation is there and I can’t, ethically, not go."
Alfred said she is proud of her brother and was "surprised, but not totally," by the news of his arrest.
"If you put yourself in harm’s way, things can happen," she said. "This was his choice to be there, it’s his personal conviction."
Linda Bevis, a member of the Palestine Solidarity Committee in Seattle, which acts as branch of the International Solidarity Movement, said Johnson has an attorney in Israel and is fighting deportation back to the United States.
Bevis, who has been to the West Bank several times, said Ramle Prison where Johnson is being held is generally the last stop for activists in Israel before being deported.
Johnson and Bernal are the sixth and seventh foreign International Solidarity Movement activists to be arrested by Israeli forces in the past two weeks, the group said.
Reporter Victor Balta: 425-339-3455 or vbalta@heraldnet.com.
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