In his jail cell, Meir prayed that G-d would watch over Shoshana and save his cherished caravan from being squashed like a soda can under the wheels of a huge army bulldozer. All he could do now was pray. What would be, would be. If necessary, he would build a new settlement. He would begin a new garden. He would plant new roses.
In Hevron, the scene wasn’t pretty, but all was not lost. Before the army could close off the roads, several hundred determined Jews gathered in Shoshana for the stand-off. Barricading themselves inside the caravans and chaining themselves to fences and pipes, they refused to surrender. Israeli policemen and soldiers surrounded the embattled givah. The Hevron army commander ordered the settlers to evacuate the area immediately. Otherwise, they would be thrown out by force. The settlers refused. For hours, the tense stalemate prevailed. The Prime Minister hesitated giving the order. What Israeli politician wanted to throw Jews out of their homes in Israel? That’s what the gentiles had done to the Jews for thousands of years. But in the face of Arab rioting all over the country and fierce international pressure, the order finally came. Soldiers rushed forward to evict the settlers. Special women soldiers were sent in to drag out the wives and young girls. Settlers were dragged and carried and pulled down from roofs. No one fought. No one hit a soldier. Still, it took close to two hours to haul away all of the passive resisters.
Finally, only one settler remained. Calev Cohen. He was holed up alone in a caravan that no soldier dared to approach.
“I’ve got a bomb with fifty kilograms of TNT strapped to my waist!” he announced from the caravan window. “If anyone tries to force me to leave, the bomb goes off.”
The area was immediately cordoned off.
“I want a radius of thirty meters on every side!” the army commander called out through a megaphone.
Settlers and soldiers alike were herded a safe distance away. Photographers and TV cameramen sought vantage points further up the hill. The Prime Minister was alerted. On television sets all over the world, viewers held their breaths.
In truth, Calev Cohen didn’t have a bomb on him at all. He was stalling for time, that was all. In Jerusalem, activists were trying to get a court order that would stop the evacuation. And Johnny, the imaginative American, had asked Cohen to give him a few hours to see what he could do.
“This is the land of the Jews!” the settler leader screamed out at the army commander when he tried to persuade him to come out.
“What are you going to prove by blowing yourself up?” the commander called out. “This isn’t Masada.”
“The Romans chased the Jews out of Masada,” Cohen yelled back. “And now Tzahal is continuing their work. The shame!”
When word came that the high court had refused to hear the anti-evacuation petition, even the most ardent settlers seemed crestfallen.
“The only true law is the Torah!” Cohen called out in response. “And G-d gave this land to the Jews!”
When the Defense Minister arrived and tried to personally convince Cohen to surrender, the stubborn settler yelled out, “You’ll go down in history as a traitor to Am Yisrael!”
The stand-off continued all through the night. That was enough for G-d to hear Meir’s prayers. Just after dawn, when weary-eyed soldiers and settlers alike were sipping on hot cups of coffee, the owner of the jackass trudged up the hill, pushing a wheelbarrow. Johnny followed behind him. Cameramen hurried forward. In the wheelbarrow was the jackass’s head. Its eye was still open, as if it too wanted to see what would happen.
“I killed the jackass,” the Arab confessed.
The army commander stared at him dumbfounded.
A cheer went up from the settlers. They all rushed the givah. Soldiers stood watching, waiting for an order that never came. The families of Shoshana returned to their homes. Calev Cohen emerged from his caravan, wrapped in tallit and tefillin. Settlers lifted him onto their shoulders. In Shoshana, the Jews had light and gladness and joy and honor.
“How did you do it?” Meir asked Johnny when he returned home to the caravan that he loved.
