The jackass was still in the shop of the blacksmith. But when the Israeli police started asking questions, the blacksmith forgot all his Hebrew. He told the police that he had never met Meir in his life.
“He’s afraid to tell the truth,” Meir said. “He’s afraid of what they’ll do to him. That’s the jackass, right there.”
“I’ve had that jackass for years,” the blacksmith countered.
The police didn’t know whom to believe. On the one hand, they knew that the Arabs couldn’t be trusted. But on the other hand, they believed that religious settlers like Meir were fanatics and threats to the status quo. One thing was certain. The jackass himself wasn’t talking. Because they had no real evidence against Meir, they were forced to let him go.
An edgy Meir returned to Shoshana to find a crowd of newspaper and television reporters outside his caravan, interviewing Johnny. Cameramen were taking photographs of the garden and scouting the grounds of the settlement as if to uncover the carcass of the infamous beast.
“Why did you kill it?” a reporter asked Meir.
“Is it buried nearby?” another wanted to know.
“What right do you have to live in Hevron?” a woman asked in English.
Photographers snapped pictures. Microphones were pushed in his face. A television camera from ABC News in America was pointed at him like a gun.
Before Meir could answer, a hand grabbed his arm and dragged him away from the crowd. It was Johnny. As he pulled Meir into his caravan, Meir saw the great, bearded face of Caleb Cohen, the leader of the Hevron settlers, as he battled his way into the center of the microphones.
“This is a blood-libel,” he boomed. “Not only against one innocent Jew. This is an attack against the Jewish people’s right to live in the Land of Israel.”
Word came that hundreds of Arabs were gathering in front of the Hevron police station, demanding the dismantlement of the Shoshana settlement. Not wanting to miss the action, the reporters scattered like roaches to their cars. For all of his supposed extremism, Caleb Cohen was right. It seemed that all the brewing tension of the Middle East had surfaced in Meir’s backyard.
The charismatic leader strode into the caravan followed by another half-dozen settlers. They converged around the dining-room table. Cohen immediately grabbed the telephone, calling for an on-the-spot meeting of the Hevron Settlement Council
Silently, Meir’s wife set glasses, juice, and cake on the table. Settlers kept arriving, piling into the caravan until the walls seem to bulge. After a heated discussion, two emergency resolutions were passed. The settlers in the caravan would refuse to surrender Meir to the police, and that very night, a group of families would be sent to occupy abandoned apartments in the heart of the Arab Casba.
The command room in the Avraham Avinu settlement down the hill called on the radio. The Arabs were rioting at the police station. Thousands of them. The army was battling the crowd with tear gas and rubber bullets. The scattering Arabs had regrouped and were headed up the hill to Shoshana. Sure enough, a convoy of army command cars and jeeps were now arriving outside. Dozens of Israeli soldiers jumped off the vehicles to form a protective barricade around the small enclave.
Johnny burst into the caravan. “The Apaches are coming from all directions,” he said.
Outside the window, Meir could see the Arabs swarming up the hill. A barrage of tear gas caused them to run.
“Not only that,” Johnny continued in his excited, broken Hebrew. “I just got a call from America. My parents saw me just now on TV.”
There was a knock on the caravan door. It was the Hevron army commander calling for Meir. He had orders to take him to the police. Caleb Cohen opened the door and answered him angrily. Meir wouldn’t be handed over until all Hevron Arabs living in former Jewish houses were expelled.
“It’s for Meir’s protection,” the commander said. “For the protection of all of you. If this protest gets bigger, I can’t guarantee your safety.”
“That’s your problem,” Cohen said and shut the door.
A great clatter shook the roof of the caravan. Dust swirled up from outside and for several seconds Shoshana was enveloped in a cloud. An army helicopter swooped down and landed by the children’s playground, which had been donated to the settlement by a wealthy Mexican Jew. Another salvo of tear gas kept the second charge of Arabs at bay as the Israeli Minister of Defense jumped out of the chopper and ran to the caravan door. The settlers immediately let him inside.
