Arabs, Armenians, Catholics
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gades harbored two British deserters in his home and led them
to mine another entrance to the Vank, hoping to force their
way in. Others joined the Arabs in spreading the lie that the
Kaghakatzis—the native-bom Armenian Jerusalemites, historic
defenders of the Vank—were "Arman Khrayen," in order to
force the Patriarch to open the monastery door. But the
Patriarch held the great iron key as if it were the key to
heaven.
Still another stone, a third, was on the Patriarch's heart.
This one was Jewish, and added its weight to the Catholic
and Armenian.
At sunset on May 13 the British, who had been guarding
the Greek Monastery of St, Georges, which bordered on the
Jewish and Armenian quarters, left the Old City without
warning. The alert Haganah defenders immediately began to
occupy the Armenian areas, to the great alarm of the Armenians. If this news reached the Arabs they would think the
Armenians had allowed the Jews to enter. The renegade
hordes, waiting for just such an excuse, would attack both
Jews and Armenians, and the Vank would indeed become a
bloody battleground.
As an immediate precaution against Arab attack, all the Armenian families were evacuated to the monastery. But no
Arabs came. By midnight the Jews had occupied more than
half of the deserted quarter. The Arabs meanwhile were still
asleep to the fact that the Jews were consolidating their position. The Patriarch decided to act. He dispatched two priests
to the Jews, saying: "Tell the Jews that they must leave at
once. Try to make them understand that if they do not want
to be attacked, they must withdraw immediately from our
quarter. If they refuse, report back to me immediately."
Stealthily, through the barricaded street separating the two
quarters, as the story was told me, the black-robed priests
crossed to the Jewish side. Happily the Arabs were snoring in
their beds. Had a single Arab seen Armenians crossing into the
Jewish sector, five thousand hoodlums would have rushed to