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After a bitter court decision last year
The Palestinian families in this house were evicted
And Jewish occupants moved in.
The transfer of occupants was regarded as a triumph by religious Jews
But an outrage by local Palestinians, and Israeli peace activists.
The new Jewish residents put up the large menorah candlestick design
And the Hebrew words below, which read
"And the sons will return home."
A well-known biblical phrase, from the Book of the prophet Jeremiah.
Across the street, through this gate, lives Saleh.
His wife and four kids,
and 14 other extended family members, including his mother and father.
The government, and the settlers, and the police - are together.
They don't want Arabs here.
Saleh begins his story, as many Palestinians do
with the War of 1948.
His parents fled from their home in Jaffa.
And stayed with his mother's relatives, near this neighborhood.
Nothing was here before.
Only trees.
And they began to build 28 houses.
The government of Jordan gave them the land.
And UNRWA built the houses.
They began another life
A new life.
But the new life ended with the 1967 War.
And a few years later the court cases started
against the occupants of these original 28 houses.
They continued the third Nakba.
So, you see, in 1948, the first time.
And 1967.
And in 1972, they began to get the Palestinians
to leave.
And they began to go to Court.
And continued until what you see now.
Later his mom sat down with us.
She's lived in this house since it was built, in 1952.
I speak to Obama through the camera.
And I tell him - you have 2 daughters. Would you like them to be thrown into the street?
Let the Jews live and let us live. But keep them away from us.
I had a hard time finding a Jewish family to talk to.
Until I realized I was calling the neighborhood by the wrong name.
For Jews it's "Shimon HaTzaddik".
Named after the ancient tomb which Jews regard as the center of the neighborhood.
Yoni Yosef is the grandson of the Sephardi former Chief Rabbi of Israel.
In this neighborhood, he is known as "the boss".
I follow Yoni around the corner to the Tomb.
People come to pray here from all Israel.
Who can tell me
that this is not the Jewish capital, and this is not a Jewish neighborhood?
Liar.
Here inside you have an Arab man.
They changed the name - it's Sheikh Hijazi.
They changed it to Shimon HaTzadik.
The tomb - whoever is buried inside it -
is right behind Saleh's back wall.
Eventually, Yoni takes me from the grave site
back to the settler house with the big menorah.
How many families live in this building?
This building - eight families and one single.
The single is the manager of all this neighborhood.
We look for someone from one of the families to talk with.
None of the women want to talk.
Finally a man comes home and invites us in.
I ask him why he decided to move into this disputed house less than a year ago.
It was a dream. I had some sort of a dream.
When I was young, I wanted to
do something that I felt was Zionist.
And I'm a Jerusalem freak.
I have to live in Jerusalem.
And does he think about the people who used to live here?
They had to leave the house.
So it wasn't by choice
It was more by force
And therefore, the people that are living across the street now
have the same problem.
It's not only here.
It's all four acres around us.
The settlers come from the end of the world. From places we’ve never heard of.
They’re settling in our house. This is not what God said.
We take house after house because
this area belongs to the Jewish people.
Our dream is that all East Jerusalem
will be like West Jerusalem.
Jewish capital of Israel.
Meir Margalit is a Jerusalem City Councilman
from the left wing Meretz Party.
As a member of the City government
he had access to a building plan for Sheikh Jarrah
submitted to the city by a holding company for the settler groups.
In this plot of land, they want to build
almost 200 houses.
He means units for 200 Jewish families.
For the Municipality, this is wonderful because
it's exactly what they want.
We haven't finished the job.
We are going to the next neighborhood
and after that we'll go further.
This is the best way for them
to undermine any kind of
compromise with the Palestinians
or any kind of solution in the future.
Where does the settler organization get the money to pay the court costs
and to buy the land?
70% of the money comes from the Israeli government.
And 30% from
Jews living in France
or in the United States.
In some ways, yes, I feel like I'm a pawn
and I don't feel
that's all that bad.
Sometimes you need pawns to do the real work.
"Mivnei L'arisa"
--And that means? "House to be demolished."
Ahmed Qurei, a former Palestinian Prime Minister
said recently that rising tension
over continued settlement building in the Jerusalem area
was a time bomb
eroding trust between the two sides.
Which future do you have here?
My Israeli friends, they tell me, "I take my children to Eilat..."
"I take my children outside Israel to visit."
OK - but my children I can't take them anywhere.
You're afraid that if you take them to visit some place
You'll come back and you won't have a house.
You'll see your life in the street.