An American professor who works in Jenin (aka “the city of the bombers”) and was kidnapped by Palestinian thugs sympathizes with their rage: Palestinians Attack Foreigners After Raid.

In Gaza, gunmen went from room to room in hotels, looking for foreigners. By mid-afternoon, they had taken a Swiss Red Cross worker, two Australian teachers, two French medical workers and three journalists — one French and two South Korean, Palestinian and foreign officials said.

Also kidnapped were a Canadian aid worker and an American professor at the American University in the West Bank town of Jenin.

The American professor, Douglas Johnson, said he was unharmed and understood his abductors’ actions.

“They are angry over what is going on in Jericho. I feel sympathy with them,” he told an Associated Press reporter at an abandoned cemetery where he was briefly held before being freed.

UPDATE at 3/14/06 3:48:32 pm:

If this is the same Douglas Johnson (and it seems to be), he’s a full-time useful idiot for Palestinian terrorism. (It isn’t him; see the following update.)

UPDATE at 3/14/06 4:54:31 pm:

The “Douglas Johnson” linked above, while definitely a useful idiot in his own right, is apparently not the one who was abducted today.

Vital Perspective has more on happy hostage Douglas Johnson, who is an English professor at the Arab American University, from a CNN interview with him today: American Hostage Praises Palestinian Hospitality.

JIM CLANCY, HOST OF “YOUR WORLD TODAY”: All right. One of those that was caught up in all of this was an American who had gone to the West Bank to teach. The Arab American University, there was the professor, Douglas Johnson, watching on the streets of Jenin this day. He was kidnapped. He joins us now on the line.

Can you tell us about how this unfolded? Were you aware of what was going on in Jericho at the time or anything?

DOUGLAS JOHNSON, FMR. HOSTAGE: Yes. Yes. Thank you. We were told earlier in day that there had been threats made due to the situation in Jericho, that Ahmed Saadat was in the prison and that there was a fight going on. The Americans and the British had basically walked out and left the prisoners for the Israelis.

So, we were warned that the Palestinians were angry, not to leave the university. And I was actually taking a cat with a broken leg to a neighboring village to be treated. And outside, they were waiting, and they forced me into a car, and took me to Jenin.

CLANCY: Now, we’re looking at a picture of you here. And the gunmen look fierce. You look entirely unimpressed.

JOHNSON: Well, I was impressed. I mean, it was a scary situation at first. But you know, the Palestinians, you know, are hospitable. They don’t know how to be otherwise. And they treated me well, and, you know, they asked me to do an interview with Arab television, and I was happy to do that. And when it was completed, they took me to another destination. And then they had a meeting there, and then they brought me back to the university. So really it’s been kind of blown out of proportion.

But, you know, I really sympathize with the Palestinians. I mean, that’s why I’m here teaching. You know, if people in the United States and Great Britain could see the daily atrocities being committed by Israel, you know, in terms of the wall, the separation wall that’s, you know, taller and longer than the Berlin Wall and if they could see the daily checkpoints that students have to go through to get to class and the harassment and so forth. And the daily killings. I mean, the military comes into Jenin almost on a daily basis. People in the United States don’t know about this.

CLANCY: All right, Professor Johnson, you know, I follow the events in the Middle East very, very closely. And to say that it’s daily incursions and killings in Jenin is to take it too far. You know that, as well. But it is a serious situation, and it requires a lot of people like yourself that are committed to it.

Will this experience change, do you think, any of the commitment that a professor like you that’s gone to the West Bank to teach — or other Americans or British that volunteer there. Will it change that?

JOHNSON: It certainly — no, it won’t change my commitment. I mean, I’m committed as ever. You know, I understand what they did. I understand their frustration. They could have killed me. And they wouldn’t have been cut. I mean, they could have easily killed me, disposed of my body, and that would have been it. But it just — it was not in their nature to do that.

And as far as — you’re right, it doesn’t happen every day. But I hear gunfire, and, you know, very often, from my office, here in a neighboring village outside of Jenin. And then my students tell me the next day that — what happened, this happened. And, what I’m talking about, too, is the checkpoints. That’s daily. The roadblocks are daily. You know, there are aspects of this operation that the Palestinians have to deal with daily. And that’s the kind of thing that people in America don’t know about it, and they should know about it.