00:00:18.600 --> 00:00:24.200
Jaffa was once known as the bride of the sea,
and was one of the major port cities

00:00:24.280 --> 00:00:28.480
in the middle east, until the war of 1948.

00:00:31.120 --> 00:00:34.840
Post war years, so much neglect of the city,

00:00:35.520 --> 00:00:41.000
with residents experiencing high crime rates,
garbage and poverty.

00:00:43.400 --> 00:00:44.720
In the last decade,

00:00:45.520 --> 00:00:50.400
Jaffa has become a very popular destination
for real estate investors,

00:00:50.600 --> 00:00:54.160
and also for tourists from all over the world.

00:00:56.720 --> 00:01:01.080
The former Flea Market
now bustles with organic shops,

00:01:01.240 --> 00:01:04.240
high-end galleries
and design stores.

00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:08.920
But the transformation
has also had an enormous impact

00:01:09.000 --> 00:01:12.000
on those who for decades have
made Jaffa their home.

00:01:13.480 --> 00:01:16.480
Do the real estate developers
and the authorities,

00:01:16.920 --> 00:01:23.120
understand and take responsibility for the
impact of their actions on the Jaffa locals?

00:01:28.160 --> 00:01:31.880
I'm calling about the apartment
you posted for rent.

00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:34.080
How many rooms are you looking for?

00:01:34.520 --> 00:01:37.200
I'm looking for a 3-4 room apartment.

00:01:37.560 --> 00:01:40.440
Between 3-4 rooms.
-Yes.

00:01:41.080 --> 00:01:43.720
I'll call you back later, ok?

00:01:43.880 --> 00:01:46.440
Ok.
-I'll call you back on this number.

00:01:46.720 --> 00:01:47.840
Hello.

00:01:47.960 --> 00:01:53.080
I'm calling about the apartment
you posted for rent.

00:01:53.360 --> 00:01:55.360
Is it 1,800 USD?

00:01:55.640 --> 00:01:56.560
Yes.

00:01:56.640 --> 00:01:58.200
1,800 is what I saw.

00:01:58.480 --> 00:01:59.760
Yes, that's the rent.

00:01:59.960 --> 00:02:01.880
How many rooms are there?

00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:04.920
2.5 rooms.
-2,500 USD for a 2.5 room apartment?!

00:02:05.040 --> 00:02:07.800
Yes.
-Wow, wow, wow.

00:02:09.280 --> 00:02:12.400
So where did you grow up?
-In Ajami neighborhood, on Tapuach Street.

00:02:13.360 --> 00:02:14.480
Okay.

00:02:17.480 --> 00:02:20.280
It used to be unbearable to live here
on the boulevard, it was terrible.

00:02:20.360 --> 00:02:22.480
Now it's a village. Listen, it's quiet.

00:02:22.640 --> 00:02:24.760
Everything is close.
There's a supermarket here,

00:02:24.840 --> 00:02:26.560
that nice, big supermarket.

00:02:27.600 --> 00:02:30.200
Abed's Minimart.
-Yeah, but it's now a supermarket.

00:02:30.280 --> 00:02:34.360
Big rooms, a dishwasher,
a fridge and a microwave.

00:02:36.080 --> 00:02:38.080
And now onto the rooms.
-I love the living room.

00:02:38.160 --> 00:02:41.040
Yes, the living room is insane.
This is the first bedroom.

00:02:41.120 --> 00:02:43.320
Let's call this the master bedroom.

00:02:43.800 --> 00:02:46.560
They hardly make these anymore,

00:02:46.640 --> 00:02:47.760
it's a utility room.

00:02:47.960 --> 00:02:51.040
I grew up right next to that thing
called a ha'uz.

00:02:51.160 --> 00:02:53.600
The water tower.
-Yes.

00:02:53.760 --> 00:02:57.320
Would you live here, in the neighborhood,
in the building? -Yes.

00:02:57.440 --> 00:03:00.840
Listen, I love the place, okay?

00:03:01.240 --> 00:03:04.160
But the price is too high.

00:03:09.640 --> 00:03:12.720
Hey, babe,
I just saw the apartment.

00:03:12.800 --> 00:03:15.040
An apartment for rent,
for a married couple.

00:03:15.120 --> 00:03:19.160
They're asking for 1,900 USD a month.

00:03:19.400 --> 00:03:24.440
More than half my salary
would go on rent, you understand?

00:03:26.280 --> 00:03:29.280
Anyway, I'll talk to you later, my love.

00:03:31.240 --> 00:03:32.040
Bye.

00:04:23.520 --> 00:04:26.280
Jaffa is a kind of zombie city.

00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:28.800
It's a city that's partly alive.

00:04:28.880 --> 00:04:32.000
The city's alive and vibrant, but actually

00:04:33.640 --> 00:04:37.520
it's hiding some kind of clinical urban death.

00:04:37.600 --> 00:04:37.640
death.

00:04:41.600 --> 00:04:46.040
Gentrification is a process
of class change within a city space.

00:04:46.640 --> 00:04:49.600
A neighborhood turns from a
centrally located underprivileged neighborhood

00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:54.240
to a neighborhood that's considered and branded
as a wealthier neighborhood.

00:04:55.480 --> 00:04:58.000
A wealthier population moves
into the neighborhood

00:04:58.120 --> 00:05:01.640
gradually changes its appearance,
and transforms it

00:05:01.720 --> 00:05:03.080
into a "better" neighborhood.

00:05:03.400 --> 00:05:05.280
Suddenly everything's white

00:05:05.400 --> 00:05:07.040
and no one understands
how that happened,

00:05:07.280 --> 00:05:09.040
but it seems completely natural to us.

00:05:09.120 --> 00:05:13.400
This exists everywhere
in the very capitalist modern Western world.

00:05:13.480 --> 00:05:15.760
Today, Mitte is the best area in Berlin.

00:05:15.840 --> 00:05:17.800
What happened in Mitte?
Weren't there people there?

00:05:17.880 --> 00:05:19.640
Of course there were, who were they?

00:05:19.760 --> 00:05:21.600
They were East Berliners

00:05:21.840 --> 00:05:24.480
and when the big money arrived
from West Berlin,

00:05:24.600 --> 00:05:27.680
they were kicked out and it became
an area that's like SoHo and the Village.

00:05:28.200 --> 00:05:31.160
It starts as a small trickle of yuppies,

00:05:31.280 --> 00:05:32.560
young, educated people,

00:05:32.640 --> 00:05:34.760
and gradually becomes
a more institutionalized process.

00:05:34.840 --> 00:05:36.720
Establishment, establishment,
establishment.

00:05:36.880 --> 00:05:38.360
You just need to see the pattern.

00:05:38.840 --> 00:05:40.160
Lots of people said,

00:05:40.320 --> 00:05:44.640
"Your development
is causing gentrification."

00:05:44.720 --> 00:05:46.480
That may well be.
What's the alternative?

00:05:47.040 --> 00:05:48.760
To keep neglecting Jaffa?

00:05:48.840 --> 00:05:50.600
What they said was,
"Let's 'strengthen' the city."

00:05:50.680 --> 00:05:52.080
They didn't say, "Let's turn the city white."

00:05:52.400 --> 00:05:56.000
There's both an issue of class, which is
a universal dimension around the world,

00:05:56.080 --> 00:05:59.280
and a political dimension,
and that's unique to Jaffa.

00:05:59.800 --> 00:06:00.760
What's left here?

00:06:00.840 --> 00:06:04.320
Of the 400,000 Arabs in Greater Jaffa,
there are barely 19,000 left.

00:06:04.400 --> 00:06:07.240
That's nothing, Jaffa's dead,
Jaffa isn't an Arab city anymore,

00:06:07.320 --> 00:06:10.520
Jaffa's a city for
Jewish multi-billionaires.

00:06:10.680 --> 00:06:14.040
If in the past an apartment in Jaffa
cost a certain amount,

00:06:14.320 --> 00:06:16.400
today the price is 10 times higher.

00:06:16.480 --> 00:06:17.720
It's 10 times X.

00:06:17.800 --> 00:06:20.840
You can't ignore that,
because it affects everything.

00:06:20.920 --> 00:06:24.960
There's a complex relationship
between Jews and Arabs in Jaffa.

00:06:25.200 --> 00:06:28.800
On one hand, you can find Jews and Arabs
living in the same building,

00:06:29.320 --> 00:06:32.760
Christians, Muslims, Jews,
co-existing with one another,

00:06:32.840 --> 00:06:34.600
on the other hand,
there's a lot of tension.

00:06:34.880 --> 00:06:36.880
It's the Arabs versus the Jews.

00:06:39.560 --> 00:06:41.160
It's Ashkenazi  (European) Jews
versus Sephardic Jews.

00:06:41.240 --> 00:06:43.160
And it's mainly the rich
versus the poor.

00:06:59.000 --> 00:07:02.280
My name is Adham, I'm 26,
and I'm from Jaffa.

00:07:02.800 --> 00:07:06.360
I live in Jaffa, I was born in Jaffa,
and I want to stay in Jaffa.

00:07:08.960 --> 00:07:11.440
My father was the kind of person

00:07:12.160 --> 00:07:13.280
you can't live with,

00:07:13.360 --> 00:07:17.480
and my mother made the decision
that she didn't want to continue,

00:07:17.920 --> 00:07:20.160
after their fifth child.

00:07:20.360 --> 00:07:23.080
After my father went to jail,
I had to help my family,

00:07:23.160 --> 00:07:25.120
I was in 4th grade.

00:07:25.240 --> 00:07:27.360
Yes, I gave up on some things,

00:07:27.440 --> 00:07:31.120
but eventually it paid off. I have
the most beautiful family in the world.

00:07:31.840 --> 00:07:33.760
I can't choose a different family.

00:07:34.440 --> 00:07:37.920
Do you have a list?
-Yes, on my phone.

00:07:39.320 --> 00:07:41.400
All right, give me a name.
-Abu Ayman.

00:07:41.640 --> 00:07:43.800
Abu Ayman.
-Uncle Abu Ayman.

00:07:48.440 --> 00:07:52.480
I swear,
I don't know what to do.

00:07:52.600 --> 00:07:55.160
I can't stay at my mom's,
because of the National Housing Company

00:07:55.320 --> 00:07:57.280
and the whole eviction issue,
those motherfuckers.

00:07:57.360 --> 00:07:59.760
So what will you do?
Are you looking for an apartment?

00:08:00.080 --> 00:08:02.880
I'm thinking of renting,
but it's very expensive.

00:08:02.960 --> 00:08:05.160
Renting?
-I don't know what to do.

00:08:05.240 --> 00:08:07.440
You need to have an income of 3,500 USD
and she has to have an income of 3,500 USD.

00:08:07.520 --> 00:08:11.920
7,000 USD a month just to get started.

00:08:12.720 --> 00:08:15.520
You understand?
-You know who makes 7,000, bro?

00:08:15.600 --> 00:08:17.440
Drug dealers don't make that much.

00:08:17.520 --> 00:08:20.160
You only have one option.

00:08:20.440 --> 00:08:22.600
Move to the city of Lod.

00:08:23.720 --> 00:08:26.960
What're you going to do?
You're getting married.

00:08:27.720 --> 00:08:29.040
You're getting married, come on.

00:08:29.120 --> 00:08:31.120
Would you be willing to live in Lod?
-No.

00:08:31.600 --> 00:08:33.480
Thank you very much, bro.

00:08:33.560 --> 00:08:34.760
There's nowhere to go.

00:08:35.080 --> 00:08:37.400
Move these over there
and those over here.

00:08:38.680 --> 00:08:40.440
We'll go hand them out in half an hour.

00:08:40.520 --> 00:08:42.400
We'll put our faith in Allah.

00:08:45.400 --> 00:08:51.080
The state looks at Jaffa
like any other real estate shark,

00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:53.600
it sees in Jaffa

00:08:54.240 --> 00:08:56.840
a huge potential in terms of land,

00:08:57.200 --> 00:09:00.160
of buildings worth millions of USD,

00:09:01.120 --> 00:09:04.720
and unfortunately, for a very long time

00:09:04.800 --> 00:09:06.800
it viewed the tenants as an obstacle

00:09:08.520 --> 00:09:12.600
in realizing this diamond.

00:09:12.960 --> 00:09:14.400
It's not that all of a sudden there are

00:09:14.480 --> 00:09:20.920
suddenly surprisingly five hundred
eviction orders, demolition orders.

00:09:21.280 --> 00:09:25.160
Five hundred families who've been told
your house is going to be demolished.

00:09:25.720 --> 00:09:26.520
That's not sudden.

00:09:26.600 --> 00:09:29.560
The city and the government
has a responsibility in them.

00:09:30.560 --> 00:09:34.080
The problem starts
when even official institutions,

00:09:34.160 --> 00:09:35.960
like the Israel Land Administration,

00:09:36.040 --> 00:09:39.960
want to also take part
in this party and turn a profit.

00:09:40.120 --> 00:09:43.080
Here, gentrification
becomes the expropriation

00:09:43.240 --> 00:09:45.000
of the population
that's been living here

00:09:45.080 --> 00:09:45.480
for many years.

00:10:07.080 --> 00:10:09.960
Asshole! Asshole!

00:10:10.560 --> 00:10:13.280
Asshole! Asshole!

00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:20.720
They don't see them as human beings.

00:10:20.960 --> 00:10:24.600
This mechanism was built up over years
as a result of practices,

00:10:24.680 --> 00:10:26.680
and this simple mechanism works as such.

00:10:41.600 --> 00:10:44.280
The Tenant Protection Law
sounds like it's there to protect the tenant,

00:10:44.360 --> 00:10:45.840
but it doesn't,

00:10:45.920 --> 00:10:47.680
it actually ensures

00:10:47.760 --> 00:10:53.160
that the rights granted to the tenant

00:10:54.400 --> 00:10:58.680
terminate as quickly as possible
and revert back to the owner.

00:10:58.960 --> 00:11:01.680
That means that anyone who
owns these apartments today

00:11:01.760 --> 00:11:05.840
because their grandparents were
protected tenants in the apartment

00:11:07.080 --> 00:11:09.920
is supposed to be evicted
sooner or later,

00:11:10.160 --> 00:11:11.640
so long as the law hasn't changed.

00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:20.200
There's a Level A conservation
building right here.

00:11:20.280 --> 00:11:23.800
You need the City Engineer's
approval to build.

00:11:30.480 --> 00:11:33.560
The municipality has the building plan,
they'll tell you exactly.

00:11:42.320 --> 00:11:43.800
They want to demolish the building

00:11:44.920 --> 00:11:47.240
and put a bid out for the plot.

00:11:47.880 --> 00:11:49.640
Whoever has the most money will buy it,

00:11:50.520 --> 00:11:52.760
they'll build a building

00:11:52.840 --> 00:11:55.720
While the Jaffa residents move out,
they don't have the money to buy.

00:11:55.960 --> 00:11:57.320
We just don't have it.

00:11:57.640 --> 00:12:00.240
Where will we get two million USD
for an apartment?

00:12:00.800 --> 00:12:02.440
Where will someone like me
get the money?

00:12:11.840 --> 00:12:14.560
Unfortunately, there's already
an eviction ruling against the family,

00:12:14.640 --> 00:12:18.520
which includes Khaled, his wife
and his three children,

00:12:18.600 --> 00:12:20.880
including a baby
under a year old,

00:12:21.320 --> 00:12:25.480
so legally speaking, they're supposed
to be thrown out into the street

00:12:25.720 --> 00:12:27.480
and make do.

00:12:28.040 --> 00:12:30.080
No one talked to us for 30 years.

00:12:30.480 --> 00:12:32.640
More than 30 years.

00:12:32.840 --> 00:12:35.800
We paid our debts,
we paid with a standing order,

00:12:35.880 --> 00:12:38.320
we did everything.

00:12:38.400 --> 00:12:41.560
Suddenly, one day they decide
we have to leave our home.

00:12:41.640 --> 00:12:43.320
Today the generation
living in these apartments,

00:12:43.400 --> 00:12:46.280
whose fathers and grandfathers
lived here,

00:12:46.520 --> 00:12:47.960
they're actually breaking the law.

00:12:48.680 --> 00:12:51.200
These are stages of the discussion
that started back in 1948,

00:12:51.280 --> 00:12:54.680
they didn't discuss it in 1948,
but it started in 1948.

00:12:58.680 --> 00:13:02.640
And in those days,
Israel won one of its greatest victories.

00:13:03.200 --> 00:13:07.080
Arab representatives of Jaffa
agreed to surrender.

00:13:07.680 --> 00:13:12.960
On the eve of the war, there were
about 70,000 residents in Jaffa.

00:13:13.280 --> 00:13:16.720
A crowded and vibrant city.

00:13:16.800 --> 00:13:21.160
Jaffa was the crème de la crème de la crème
of the Middle East.

00:13:21.240 --> 00:13:23.240
It's a port, it's culture,

00:13:23.320 --> 00:13:25.720
it's cafes, it's food, it's poetry.

00:13:26.080 --> 00:13:30.320
After the war,
3,500 residents remained in Jaffa.

00:13:30.440 --> 00:13:34.960
Meaning, 95% of the city
disappeared overnight.

00:13:36.800 --> 00:13:40.320
The state couldn't stand
the idea of abandoned properties,

00:13:40.400 --> 00:13:42.000
because then anyone
could come and claim them.

00:13:47.400 --> 00:13:50.280
Every modern country appoints a trustee.

00:13:50.400 --> 00:13:52.520
This property automatically goes to him.

00:13:52.680 --> 00:13:55.200
It is administered
for the public's benefit.

00:13:56.360 --> 00:14:00.600
Within weeks, people flocked
to the available apartments,

00:14:00.680 --> 00:14:02.920
new immigrants,
from Bulgaria in particular,

00:14:03.000 --> 00:14:05.200
but also from the Balkans
and North Africa.

00:14:05.600 --> 00:14:08.960
They just moved into the homes.

00:14:09.120 --> 00:14:11.400
The Israel Land Authority (ILA)
authorized Israel's National Housing Company

00:14:11.480 --> 00:14:14.160
to manage the properties on its behalf,

00:14:14.320 --> 00:14:17.440
and of course the National Housing Company
received a hefty commission for that.

00:14:17.800 --> 00:14:21.200
The National Housing Company began
organizing the rentals.

00:14:22.240 --> 00:14:24.960
They went to every family
and registered them.

00:14:25.680 --> 00:14:28.200
The state imposed a military regime here.

00:14:28.800 --> 00:14:33.720
As part of its military regime, it decided
to gather all the Arabs into a single ghetto,

00:14:34.400 --> 00:14:35.840
around Ajami neighborhood,

00:14:36.800 --> 00:14:39.400
and said to them:
"We treat you so nicely.

00:14:40.040 --> 00:14:44.960
"As a state we're allowing you to enter
any house you want within this ghetto."

00:14:46.240 --> 00:14:48.440
Several months later, the state officials came,

00:14:48.520 --> 00:14:51.680
knocked on their doors,
introduced itself through its representative

00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:54.600
as the new property owners, and said:

00:14:54.680 --> 00:14:58.400
"Look, I'll sign an agreement with you
in which I'll be the owner,

00:14:58.480 --> 00:15:00.160
"not anyone else, I'm the owner.

00:15:00.280 --> 00:15:02.080
"You will be my protected tenants."

00:15:14.840 --> 00:15:18.120
My name is Turkan Hanfa Abu Rahima.

00:15:18.720 --> 00:15:22.000
I was born in the Jabaliya neighborhood.

00:15:22.840 --> 00:15:27.800
The day after my mother died, I got a call
from the Public Housing Department.

00:15:28.200 --> 00:15:29.800
They said:

00:15:29.880 --> 00:15:31.720
"You need
to give us the key."

00:15:32.200 --> 00:15:34.880
There's nothing I can do.
Where will I go?

00:15:36.000 --> 00:15:37.400
What's going on?

00:15:38.240 --> 00:15:39.680
What's up?

00:15:40.280 --> 00:15:41.760
You're still hanging up the laundry?

00:15:42.200 --> 00:15:43.960
You've been hanging it up for three days.

00:15:44.560 --> 00:15:47.080
What can I do?
-About what?

00:15:47.400 --> 00:15:49.920
The house, Mom.

00:15:50.480 --> 00:15:53.200
Can't both of us come live here?

00:15:53.280 --> 00:15:56.000
It's impossible, Adham, it's impossible.

00:15:56.200 --> 00:16:00.360
It's gotten to the point where the house
is falling apart, and they won't fix it.

00:16:01.040 --> 00:16:03.960
They don't want me to stay in the house,

00:16:04.080 --> 00:16:06.160
so you need to find an apartment.

00:16:06.520 --> 00:16:07.840
It belongs to the Public Housing Department.

00:16:08.840 --> 00:16:11.520
They're evicting us.
Look at all these homes.

00:16:11.720 --> 00:16:13.680
They have the nicest homes here.

00:16:13.760 --> 00:16:17.160
You think they'll let us stay in that house?
Of course they'll take it.

00:16:20.840 --> 00:16:22.240
We got a lawyer.

00:16:23.000 --> 00:16:25.800
From the very beginning he said
there's no chance we'll stay here.

00:16:25.960 --> 00:16:30.360
"They'll continue postponing the trial
until the children are grown,

00:16:30.880 --> 00:16:32.880
"then they'll evict you."

00:16:33.600 --> 00:16:38.880
And I heard about people who did get homes.
So he told me my case is different,

00:16:38.960 --> 00:16:42.040
because affluent people live in this area.

00:16:42.440 --> 00:16:43.640
How can I afford the rent?

00:16:43.720 --> 00:16:47.720
I make 1,600 USD
I'd need to work day and night

00:16:48.240 --> 00:16:50.680
to make, say, 2,000 USD.

00:16:50.760 --> 00:16:52.040
How?

00:16:54.000 --> 00:16:56.520
Jaffa is becoming a super expensive city.

00:16:56.640 --> 00:16:59.360
The entire first line, second line,
and third line to the sea are finished.

00:16:59.760 --> 00:17:01.080
There's nowhere to live in Jaffa.

00:17:24.720 --> 00:17:26.720
Jaffa gave me the opportunity

00:17:26.800 --> 00:17:30.880
for something that has the depth
of time and antiquity.

00:17:31.080 --> 00:17:33.640
It's funny how of all places
Jaffa was more cosmopolitan

00:17:34.000 --> 00:17:36.240
than Tel Aviv,
which was very homogeneous.

00:17:36.840 --> 00:17:39.720
There was something very rich.

00:17:40.160 --> 00:17:42.880
The sound of the church bells, the muezzin.

00:17:46.080 --> 00:17:50.360
And then, sometime during the 1980s,
the ILA posted a bid

00:17:50.640 --> 00:17:53.720
for some dump,
and that's it, the rest is history.

00:17:54.600 --> 00:17:56.600
When I bought the house,
I bought it from the ILA,

00:17:56.680 --> 00:17:59.240
but I had to vacate
the tenants that lived here.

00:17:59.440 --> 00:18:03.400
They bought three apartments
for themselves, their children and so on.

00:18:03.560 --> 00:18:06.240
So it was by choice,
and they were very happy

00:18:06.320 --> 00:18:11.080
that they could finally leave this place,
which was corroded by the sea and the wind.

00:18:11.760 --> 00:18:15.360
It's not the kind of gentrification where
people are suddenly kicked out of their homes

00:18:15.440 --> 00:18:17.400
because some rich guy
wants to live here.

00:18:17.520 --> 00:18:19.560
It's not gentrification, it's...

00:18:19.800 --> 00:18:21.080
a free market.

00:18:24.280 --> 00:18:26.920
There's no such thing as "market forces."

00:18:27.120 --> 00:18:30.200
There is population management.

00:18:30.480 --> 00:18:34.000
Market forces is a mechanism
that works well for rich white men.

00:18:34.080 --> 00:18:37.440
We need another bathroom for these two.

00:18:39.280 --> 00:18:41.760
An Arab house is a dream come true

00:18:41.840 --> 00:18:45.640
for every self-respecting bourgeois Jew.

00:18:45.720 --> 00:18:47.120
It represents a fantasy.

00:18:48.520 --> 00:18:52.040
I really think that I've become a brand.

00:18:53.440 --> 00:18:55.200
There are my buildings.

00:18:57.560 --> 00:19:00.120
There's the ORO project.

00:19:02.240 --> 00:19:04.240
The Greek Market is a project
that hasn't launched yet,

00:19:04.360 --> 00:19:05.840
but we're working on it.

00:19:05.920 --> 00:19:10.040
We're keeping the basic,
very beautiful existing structures

00:19:10.520 --> 00:19:14.360
on the ground level of the Greek Market,
and  we'll build apartments upstairs.

00:19:15.920 --> 00:19:18.280
Authenticity has become
an economic value.

00:19:18.360 --> 00:19:22.880
The Jaffa magic is actually
a kind of ax to grind.

00:19:31.240 --> 00:19:34.600
People travel to Jaffa
to consume that Orientalism.

00:19:34.840 --> 00:19:36.880
To a certain extent,
it's Oriental without the Middle Easterners.

00:19:36.960 --> 00:19:39.080
Meaning, it's an Orientalism
of representations

00:19:39.640 --> 00:19:41.080
and eating hummus.

00:19:41.200 --> 00:19:42.320
Tasting the Orient.

00:19:43.480 --> 00:19:46.680
On a cultural level,
Jaffa provides the experience

00:19:46.760 --> 00:19:49.720
of being in a space
that is inherently Arab,

00:19:49.960 --> 00:19:54.040
without paying any price
in terms of loss of privileges or exclusion.

00:20:04.760 --> 00:20:07.400
Yes. Two armchairs, two tables.

00:20:07.640 --> 00:20:11.320
Moving to Jaffa wasn't
an ideological choice.

00:20:11.440 --> 00:20:15.360
It was the closest place
to Tel Aviv that I could afford,

00:20:16.080 --> 00:20:20.440
and a kind of financial investment,

00:20:20.560 --> 00:20:22.960
the value of the apartments here
will eventually go up.

00:20:23.040 --> 00:20:24.800
Wow...
-Three here.

00:20:25.280 --> 00:20:26.880
Does this go here?
-Yes.

00:20:27.520 --> 00:20:29.000
Dor and Ruth, the designers.

00:20:29.440 --> 00:20:31.480
This is what I'm taking from my dad.

00:20:33.640 --> 00:20:34.840
Gorgeous!

00:20:35.400 --> 00:20:39.240
The central players in this story
are the middle class,

00:20:39.360 --> 00:20:42.440
when areas we thought were unattractive,

00:20:42.520 --> 00:20:44.960
like Pivko's project
near Yerushalayim Boulevard

00:20:45.040 --> 00:20:46.600
have turned into pearls.

00:20:47.240 --> 00:20:49.760
There is great success
with the market segment

00:20:49.880 --> 00:20:53.880
I consider "the alpha segment,"
that is, people who are savvy.

00:20:55.920 --> 00:20:59.520
The forces working to push out
the weak population

00:20:59.840 --> 00:21:03.560
on the fringes of the city are huge.

00:21:03.840 --> 00:21:06.000
It's not just forces
from within the municipality.

00:21:06.160 --> 00:21:08.840
They're national forces, ideological forces,

00:21:08.920 --> 00:21:10.560
forces from abroad.

00:21:10.800 --> 00:21:12.800
The gentrification here
is very multi-layered.

00:21:16.760 --> 00:21:19.840
The apartment I want to show you is right here.

00:21:31.800 --> 00:21:32.680
Yes.

00:21:34.040 --> 00:21:36.400
We can come in.
Here it is.

00:21:36.520 --> 00:21:38.080
You have a sleeping area here.

00:21:39.880 --> 00:21:42.240
The bedroom isn't big, the living room.

00:21:43.720 --> 00:21:47.400
Oh, man! The ACs.
-Yes, they're right here.

00:21:48.440 --> 00:21:51.200
It's priced accordingly.
-I understand. -There's a rate.

00:21:51.320 --> 00:21:53.920
Something like this in, say, Noga,
in the neighborhood,

00:21:54.000 --> 00:21:55.720
could reach around...

00:21:56.320 --> 00:21:59.440
1,400 to 1,500 USD, okay?
Since it's here, that's the price,

00:21:59.520 --> 00:22:01.480
but it's also close to the sea.

00:22:01.560 --> 00:22:04.200
I'd never pay 1,300 USD
for something like this.

00:22:04.280 --> 00:22:05.960
It's true that when you leave here,
you say,

00:22:06.080 --> 00:22:07.800
"There's the sea,
there's the boulevard,"

00:22:07.880 --> 00:22:09.800
but you have to live in this house.

00:22:09.880 --> 00:22:12.240
The minute the municipality
invests in infrastructure

00:22:12.320 --> 00:22:14.880
and culture and environmental
and infrastructural development,

00:22:15.280 --> 00:22:18.960
the wealthy population shows up
and wants to join the success,

00:22:19.160 --> 00:22:21.800
and the by-product of that
is that the prices go up.

00:22:22.120 --> 00:22:25.680
Then it becomes hard to live here,
I see that, that's what happens,

00:22:25.800 --> 00:22:27.360
and there's this kind of migration.

00:22:28.080 --> 00:22:29.400
It's hard to stop it.

00:22:30.520 --> 00:22:31.680
You saw it?
You got an impression?

00:22:33.000 --> 00:22:34.760
I saw it,
but I'm not impressed.

00:22:35.280 --> 00:22:36.480
We agree on that.

00:22:38.240 --> 00:22:40.920
Most people who come to Jaffa

00:22:41.240 --> 00:22:43.080
don't want to see Jaffa as it is,

00:22:43.160 --> 00:22:45.240
they want to see Jaffa
the way they want to see it.

00:22:45.600 --> 00:22:49.160
So they want to kick out the Arab neighbor
with the noisy house,

00:22:49.240 --> 00:22:50.560
because he has six kids.

00:22:50.680 --> 00:22:52.440
Then why did you move in next door?

00:22:57.880 --> 00:23:01.080
The first indication of gentrification
is a hipster café.

00:23:01.880 --> 00:23:03.280
It can go like this:

00:23:03.800 --> 00:23:05.520
"But this is a community project,

00:23:06.320 --> 00:23:09.520
"everyone's invited, it's not just ours,

00:23:10.040 --> 00:23:12.960
"we don't have a problem if neighborhood
residents come join us

00:23:13.160 --> 00:23:16.800
"for a mochaccino latte
with soy and almond milk."

00:23:16.920 --> 00:23:18.640
The garbage bins start looking nicer.

00:23:19.080 --> 00:23:21.640
They installed polls
so no one parks on the sidewalks.

00:23:21.760 --> 00:23:23.960
They opened a cooperative kindergarten.

00:23:24.320 --> 00:23:26.880
They bring all kinds of new equipment
to the park.

00:23:27.280 --> 00:23:29.840
You're in shock. This park used
to be full of junkies and prostitutes,

00:23:29.920 --> 00:23:31.960
there were always cardboard boxes
on the ground.

00:23:32.040 --> 00:23:35.600
All of a sudden it's clean,
the night patrol unit starts patrolling.

00:23:35.920 --> 00:23:38.800
After 40 years of asking
for the bus to enter the neighborhood,

00:23:38.880 --> 00:23:41.360
all of a sudden the bus passes through.
And that's the process.

00:23:41.440 --> 00:23:43.640
And if you're not stupid,
you realize it right away.

00:23:44.040 --> 00:23:45.520
You realize there used to be
a population there

00:23:45.600 --> 00:23:47.520
that nobody wanted them
to have these things.

00:23:58.280 --> 00:24:01.080
Intentional neglect,
you think it's a garbage bin,

00:24:01.160 --> 00:24:03.600
you think they didn't come
to clean up the park.

00:24:03.680 --> 00:24:05.440
You whitewash things.

00:24:05.640 --> 00:24:07.000
I don't like whitewashing things.

00:24:07.400 --> 00:24:09.120
Let's talk freely.
-So what is it?

00:24:15.360 --> 00:24:20.400
In the 1960s and 1970s,
Jaffa was systematically destroyed.

00:24:20.760 --> 00:24:25.200
There was a deliberate plan
of out with the old and in with the new.

00:24:25.280 --> 00:24:28.360
The plans brought about the demolition
of 50% of Ajami

00:24:28.440 --> 00:24:30.040
and 70% of the Old City.

00:24:30.120 --> 00:24:32.280
Manshiya neighborhood was completely destroyed.

00:24:42.680 --> 00:24:45.440
All of a sudden
there's sand, sand, sand.

00:24:45.520 --> 00:24:48.760
Entire plots of land stand empty.
Wasn't there anything here before?

00:24:49.160 --> 00:24:52.480
People still live amid the ruins.

00:24:53.120 --> 00:24:56.360
Anyone driving on the
new Tel Aviv-Jaffa motorway

00:24:56.640 --> 00:24:58.320
will quickly notice them.

00:24:58.720 --> 00:25:01.360
Children are born and raised here.

00:25:01.760 --> 00:25:04.480
Here, amid the rubble, families are built.

00:25:08.640 --> 00:25:11.000
The municipality neglects the infrastructure,
there is no infrastructure in the city.

00:25:11.160 --> 00:25:14.680
You see sewage running through the street,
children walking around barefoot,

00:25:14.760 --> 00:25:17.160
homes covered in plywood.

00:25:17.360 --> 00:25:20.080
Movies filmed in those days, like "Kazablan",

00:25:20.160 --> 00:25:22.040
show us exactly what happened in Jaffa.

00:25:26.680 --> 00:25:30.000
During that period,
Jaffa became an impoverished area,

00:25:30.720 --> 00:25:34.640
and the Jewish population
gradually left Jaffa.

00:25:38.480 --> 00:25:42.440
I'm concerned about the housing situation
of Jaffa's residents.

00:25:42.560 --> 00:25:45.400
It's disrespectful, it's inhuman,

00:25:45.520 --> 00:25:48.640
and something must be done
to rectify the situation, and fast.

00:25:53.360 --> 00:25:56.240
When I look at my childhood,
I ask myself what happened there.

00:25:56.320 --> 00:25:58.840
There was a lot of violence
within public spaces,

00:25:59.520 --> 00:26:01.880
a lot of unpleasant experiences.

00:26:02.200 --> 00:26:04.080
It was very common for us
to walk down the street

00:26:04.160 --> 00:26:06.160
and see lots of junkies.

00:26:06.240 --> 00:26:08.440
Sometimes they were family members,
sometimes friends.

00:26:09.600 --> 00:26:12.480
These images weren't filmed in the Wild West

00:26:12.760 --> 00:26:14.680
or in a refugee camp in Gaza.

00:26:15.520 --> 00:26:19.520
This is Jaffa, folks.
Jaffa, November 1989.

00:26:21.360 --> 00:26:24.000
What Jaffa experienced is...

00:26:24.720 --> 00:26:26.480
a human experiment.

00:26:26.560 --> 00:26:29.240
Turning the most important Palestinian city

00:26:29.360 --> 00:26:30.600
into a slum,

00:26:30.760 --> 00:26:32.360
a Tel Aviv slum.

00:26:32.480 --> 00:26:34.480
Just 10 minutes from the heart of Tel Aviv

00:26:34.560 --> 00:26:38.040
and it feels like you've arrived in a reality
taken from a book by Charles Dickens.

00:26:38.200 --> 00:26:42.320
Children who haven't bathed in months,
because their homes don't have hot water.

00:26:42.520 --> 00:26:45.720
9- and 10-year-old children
who don't go to school

00:26:46.040 --> 00:26:48.360
and serve as drug couriers
for their parents.

00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:02.680
We are with you!
You don't need to convince us.

00:27:05.440 --> 00:27:07.280
I've been a political activist
since my early 20s.

00:27:07.440 --> 00:27:12.080
At 26 I was elected to the Muslim Council,
I was very involved there,

00:27:12.160 --> 00:27:14.600
then I wanted
to take it to the next level.

00:27:14.960 --> 00:27:17.040
So I asked myself,
"What do I want to tell the people of Jaffa?"

00:27:17.400 --> 00:27:19.160
It started with our slogan,

00:27:19.280 --> 00:27:21.800
"Yaffa shetti,"
which means "My Jaffa."

00:27:21.880 --> 00:27:25.120
What I wanted to say to the Arab population
in Jaffa is that Jaffa is ours.

00:27:25.480 --> 00:27:27.880
And the campaign slogan was:
We want to have an impact.

00:27:28.120 --> 00:27:31.000
We want to be involved
in how this city is built.

00:27:31.200 --> 00:27:33.600
We want to have an impact
on its public spaces.

00:27:49.400 --> 00:27:51.160
All we're saying
is give us five minutes of your time

00:27:51.280 --> 00:27:52.800
to serve you for the next five years.

00:27:53.000 --> 00:27:55.000
One of Jaffa's biggest problems

00:27:55.160 --> 00:28:00.040
is that its development plan was
created by people outside of Jaffa.

00:28:00.800 --> 00:28:02.480
They have no connection to us.

00:28:02.560 --> 00:28:05.040
And the person deciding the education
of our schools is also not from Jaffa.

00:28:05.400 --> 00:28:07.560
The person running the Old City,
is not from Jaffa.

00:28:07.960 --> 00:28:10.280
The person in charge of parking
isn't from Jaffa,

00:28:10.360 --> 00:28:12.720
and the person managing the issue
of the beach isn't from Jaffa either.

00:28:13.480 --> 00:28:19.120
There's no Jaffite party on the City Council,
so we don't have an address at city hall.

00:28:19.720 --> 00:28:21.800
The problem is that people

00:28:21.880 --> 00:28:26.160
don't know their rights.

00:28:26.320 --> 00:28:30.760
Since they're from Northern Tel Aviv,

00:28:31.440 --> 00:28:37.040
their feelings are taken into consideration and
they're included, because they pay money.

00:28:37.360 --> 00:28:40.080
They think we're ignorant,
that we don't understand anything.

00:28:40.400 --> 00:28:45.440
And what makes me angry is seeing
the gap between us and them.

00:28:45.520 --> 00:28:46.880
I'll explain why.

00:28:46.960 --> 00:28:50.240
When I look at the numbers and see
what the Tel Aviv budget is spent on

00:28:50.320 --> 00:28:52.520
versus what's spent here,
it drives me crazy.

00:28:53.240 --> 00:28:57.880
They invested millions in dog parks.

00:28:57.960 --> 00:28:59.960
On the other hand,
when we ask for budgets for schools

00:29:00.040 --> 00:29:03.080
they treat it as if they're doing us a favor.
They come and talk to us about violence.

00:29:03.640 --> 00:29:05.320
I personally have four friends
who were murdered.

00:29:05.400 --> 00:29:08.440
Since the beginning of the campaign,
two of my neighbors were murdered.

00:29:09.160 --> 00:29:11.200
Two people from my street
were murdered.

00:29:12.000 --> 00:29:15.080
They should come here and tell us
how to solve the violence problem?

00:29:24.800 --> 00:29:26.880
I have a serious problem with my mom.

00:29:26.960 --> 00:29:28.680
There's an eviction order.

00:29:29.160 --> 00:29:30.760
I'll tell you the truth,

00:29:30.880 --> 00:29:33.720
Today we are 18,000 or 20,000 Arab
residents in the city

00:29:33.800 --> 00:29:36.080
Ten years from now
there will only be 8,000 Arabs here.

00:29:36.280 --> 00:29:42.120
I can tell you names of people
who were forced to rent outside the city,

00:29:42.200 --> 00:29:45.400
in Ramla, Lod, Jaljulia, you name it,
including Kafr Qasem.

00:29:46.080 --> 00:29:50.760
If you can't get 130 or 150 thousand USD,
forget about buying an apartment.

00:29:51.000 --> 00:29:56.160
So the bank agrees to give you a maximum
mortgage of 75% financing,

00:29:56.920 --> 00:29:58.320
meaning 350 thousand USD.

00:29:58.680 --> 00:30:02.960
If you don't have
130-150 thousand USD...

00:30:04.160 --> 00:30:06.120
don't even dream about the bank
approving your mortgage.

00:30:07.440 --> 00:30:12.080
Rent an apartment and start working like
crazy for the next four or five years.

00:30:12.160 --> 00:30:14.560
Work like crazy, day and night.

00:30:15.120 --> 00:30:17.680
Nothing else matters.

00:30:18.600 --> 00:30:22.200
She has the right to stay in her house.
So why did she get an eviction order?

00:30:22.800 --> 00:30:24.240
Welcome to Jaffa.

00:30:24.320 --> 00:30:28.400
Schedule a meeting, we'll go there
and see exactly what this is all about.

00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:35.480
The Muslims, the Christians,
the Arabs in general,

00:30:36.480 --> 00:30:37.760
have nowhere to go.

00:30:37.840 --> 00:30:40.320
They can't leave
and move to Bat Yam,

00:30:40.560 --> 00:30:42.000
because they don't want them there.

00:30:42.080 --> 00:30:43.720
They need a mosque,

00:30:43.920 --> 00:30:46.680
and they can't go build themselves a mosque,
and they won't build them a mosque,

00:30:46.760 --> 00:30:49.040
not in Bat Yam
or Holon or Rishon LeZion,

00:30:49.160 --> 00:30:50.840
and the same goes for churches.

00:30:51.120 --> 00:30:55.720
They need childcare for their toddlers
when they go to kindergarten,

00:30:56.480 --> 00:30:59.200
and their kids
when they join the Scouts,

00:30:59.280 --> 00:31:02.320
that speaks the language and the culture.

00:31:02.920 --> 00:31:06.840
That doesn't exist anywhere else,
and it can't be obtained anywhere else.

00:31:16.240 --> 00:31:19.360
When we were little,
we didn't understand what a home was.

00:31:19.440 --> 00:31:21.520
We understood
it's our family, our parents.

00:31:21.720 --> 00:31:24.520
I understood that this was my home,
I didn't understand anything else.

00:31:24.680 --> 00:31:27.400
All of a sudden,
"You're trespassing, you can't stay here."

00:31:29.160 --> 00:31:31.600
Your situation is difficult,

00:31:31.680 --> 00:31:34.440
because you can't stay
in public housing anymore

00:31:35.440 --> 00:31:37.640
after your parents die,
may they rest in peace.

00:31:37.720 --> 00:31:40.920
I have a boy who's 25 now,
I can't marry him off.

00:31:41.600 --> 00:31:44.840
The prices are sky-high. -He doesn't know
what to do. Move to Lod to rent a place?

00:31:45.240 --> 00:31:49.520
I can't, I helped him with the engagement,
we worked side by side,

00:31:49.600 --> 00:31:51.360
but I'm not able to marry him off.

00:31:51.800 --> 00:31:53.440
They want to kick the Arabs out of here

00:31:53.600 --> 00:31:58.760
and it's an organized and systematic plan

00:31:58.880 --> 00:32:01.360
that's been going on for years.

00:32:01.440 --> 00:32:03.840
We know that.
-They bought themselves time,

00:32:03.920 --> 00:32:08.920
and gradually raised the prices.
The homes that were here since the 1990s,

00:32:09.280 --> 00:32:11.640
the houses were here
and just waiting for buyers.

00:32:11.720 --> 00:32:13.920
We're also stupid, not everything...

00:32:14.040 --> 00:32:16.560
Us too, our parents were ignorant

00:32:16.720 --> 00:32:19.680
A large part of them were able to buy
and build themselves with a foundation,

00:32:19.760 --> 00:32:23.720
but we also made mistakes.
-But my father wasn't able to buy.

00:32:23.840 --> 00:32:26.240
We're going to try
and raise 3,200 USD

00:32:26.840 --> 00:32:28.760
for a lawyer to submit
a request to the court,

00:32:28.840 --> 00:32:30.520
for a stay order,

00:32:30.600 --> 00:32:32.200
and then we'll appeal their decision.

00:32:32.560 --> 00:32:36.080
That's the situation for now.
You need to understand that.

00:32:39.080 --> 00:32:40.840
Here's our bathroom, outside.

00:32:41.120 --> 00:32:42.600
Our bathroom is here, outside.

00:32:42.920 --> 00:32:46.160
We go all the way around
to get to the bathroom.

00:32:46.720 --> 00:32:50.640
They're not letting her fix it, they're not
giving her approval to do something inside.

00:32:51.080 --> 00:32:53.160
If you do something,
you're breaking the law.

00:32:53.240 --> 00:32:55.880
If you add another door,
you've broken the law.

00:32:56.000 --> 00:32:58.080
If you add another brick,
you've broken the law.

00:32:58.160 --> 00:32:59.800
We don't even go up to the roof.

00:33:00.840 --> 00:33:02.480
Let's take a look at it.

00:33:02.560 --> 00:33:05.200
It's difficult for me to go up, it's dangerous.

00:33:11.760 --> 00:33:14.280
This is a house with prospects.

00:33:14.840 --> 00:33:19.680
On this land they'll build a building with...

00:33:20.320 --> 00:33:22.200
six or eight apartments,

00:33:22.880 --> 00:33:24.480
three or four stories high.

00:33:25.240 --> 00:33:27.120
Two housing units on each floor.

00:33:27.200 --> 00:33:30.360
Every apartment will cost
four, 1.5 million USD.

00:33:31.320 --> 00:33:35.880
Multiply 1.5 million USD
by six, seven, eight units.

00:33:35.960 --> 00:33:41.440
They can make 9 or 12 million USD
from this building.

00:33:42.480 --> 00:33:44.280
You know what I always say?

00:33:47.200 --> 00:33:52.120
That the establishment is never satisfied.

00:33:52.200 --> 00:33:54.240
Now they're taking over Ajami

00:33:55.160 --> 00:33:57.960
as if there's nowhere else in this country.

00:33:58.800 --> 00:33:59.880
Enough.

00:34:00.080 --> 00:34:02.800
You put us in this neighborhood,
you put a ghetto around me,

00:34:03.080 --> 00:34:04.840
you told me,
"You grow up here."

00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:07.320
What now? Now you have
an appetite for the sea?

00:34:07.600 --> 00:34:10.680
You have an appetite
for the authentic alleys of Ajami?

00:34:10.920 --> 00:34:14.840
After you painted and designed
all of Manshiya to your taste,

00:34:14.960 --> 00:34:18.280
you want to move here
and bring that community here too?

00:34:19.200 --> 00:34:21.480
Your French community or whoever,

00:34:21.840 --> 00:34:24.120
to do business at my expense?

00:34:24.200 --> 00:34:26.000
What do you want from me?

00:34:27.880 --> 00:34:29.440
I'm not leaving my house.

00:34:31.120 --> 00:34:32.480
I'm going to stay here.

00:34:33.320 --> 00:34:35.000
And if I die, I'll die here.

00:34:35.240 --> 00:34:36.440
I'm not leaving.

00:34:46.080 --> 00:34:48.720
For over 20 years

00:34:49.120 --> 00:34:52.120
it was impossible to make
any renovations in Jaffa,

00:34:52.800 --> 00:34:54.760
it was impossible to build
anything in Jaffa.

00:34:54.840 --> 00:34:56.880
There were no urban building plans
until the early '90s,

00:34:57.560 --> 00:35:00.360
which led to a situation
where families grew a lot,

00:35:00.480 --> 00:35:03.760
but they weren't able to legally
expand their homes.

00:35:04.360 --> 00:35:06.680
Naturally, that caused
many families to grow

00:35:06.760 --> 00:35:11.120
and take over the empty houses next to them
or empty rooms next to them.

00:35:12.920 --> 00:35:16.160
Mr. Saba also received an eviction notice
from the building in which he's lived

00:35:16.240 --> 00:35:17.920
with his family for many years.

00:35:18.880 --> 00:35:20.680
Hundreds of other families living

00:35:20.760 --> 00:35:24.600
in this expensive and desirable seafront area
are in the process of being evicted

00:35:24.680 --> 00:35:27.160
by the Israel Land Authority
and  National Housing Company.

00:35:27.360 --> 00:35:30.400
The official reason:
illegal building additions.

00:35:30.680 --> 00:35:33.480
It's just a little room.
I just wanted to expand a little,

00:35:33.560 --> 00:35:37.600
to build a room for me and my wife,
so the kids would have a room.

00:35:38.080 --> 00:35:39.640
That's all I wanted to do.

00:35:39.880 --> 00:35:44.040
It's an addition that was built
in the 1970s

00:35:44.320 --> 00:35:47.200
and now this is this family's home.
They don't have another home.

00:35:47.680 --> 00:35:49.280
And there are many additions like this,

00:35:49.360 --> 00:35:51.480
because this area was frozen
for about 20 years,

00:35:51.560 --> 00:35:54.520
they didn't allow people
to build additions or renovate.

00:35:54.720 --> 00:35:57.360
You could say they forced people
to break the law.

00:35:57.560 --> 00:35:59.920
We have to take into consideration
that behind these houses

00:36:00.440 --> 00:36:03.280
there are families, people,
difficult situations.

00:36:03.640 --> 00:36:07.320
I naively thought that there's room
to take these things into consideration,

00:36:08.040 --> 00:36:10.880
and...there wasn't.

00:36:31.960 --> 00:36:33.440
Even though I want to get married,

00:36:33.520 --> 00:36:36.520
there are a million things
I could do with my life,

00:36:36.840 --> 00:36:40.200
but I'm stuck with their lives,
with what they're going to do.

00:36:40.760 --> 00:36:42.400
I can already see it,

00:36:42.720 --> 00:36:44.960
the police will come,
they'll enter my mom's house

00:36:45.080 --> 00:36:48.280
and say you need to leave now. Now!"

00:36:48.880 --> 00:36:52.120
Even when I'm at work,
I think about that day.

00:37:03.800 --> 00:37:08.160
I inherited the apartment
from my husband,

00:37:08.920 --> 00:37:12.320
then one fine day
I received an eviction notice.

00:37:12.640 --> 00:37:16.320
We tried to prevent it
until our court hearing,

00:37:16.440 --> 00:37:18.240
because we filed an appeal.

00:37:19.200 --> 00:37:22.800
Then the judge issued an insane ruling

00:37:24.000 --> 00:37:26.640
that the contents of the house can stay,

00:37:26.720 --> 00:37:28.360
they'll replace the lock,

00:37:28.800 --> 00:37:30.600
and we, the human beings,

00:37:31.640 --> 00:37:33.000
will live out on the street.

00:37:33.760 --> 00:37:36.080
I lived on the street
and played cat and mouse with them.

00:37:37.080 --> 00:37:41.120
They'd change the lock
and I'd break in.

00:37:41.240 --> 00:37:44.440
Even if the law doesn't protect us,
we need to protect ourselves.

00:37:44.520 --> 00:37:45.760
We can't give up.

00:37:45.840 --> 00:37:49.080
How many of your children
are still under 18? -Two.

00:37:49.480 --> 00:37:51.960
They postponed
and postponed and postponed.

00:37:52.040 --> 00:37:55.960
They'll just wait until your children
are over 18,

00:37:56.040 --> 00:37:58.360
and then they'll say,
"she's no longer entitled."

00:37:58.440 --> 00:38:02.800
That's a known tactic.
-I'm sick of it. I supported five children.

00:38:02.960 --> 00:38:04.040
It was very hard for me.

00:38:04.640 --> 00:38:07.120
I was alone too, I struggled,

00:38:07.200 --> 00:38:10.400
and one day before the eviction,
the bulldozers were standing right here.

00:38:10.520 --> 00:38:13.120
I raised three children by candlelight.

00:38:14.040 --> 00:38:15.760
And I had no water.

00:38:16.240 --> 00:38:17.720
There's a city fire hose down there.

00:38:17.800 --> 00:38:21.600
My husband would open the hose,
fill the buckets,

00:38:22.280 --> 00:38:24.680
the big blue buckets they had back then,

00:38:24.800 --> 00:38:27.600
and that's how I lived for many years.

00:38:27.800 --> 00:38:29.600
I struggled,
and here I am in my home.

00:38:29.960 --> 00:38:32.440
But to this day
I don't have electricity.

00:38:33.200 --> 00:38:35.040
That's what the state wants,

00:38:35.480 --> 00:38:38.360
for you to sit at home
with nothing to eat.

00:38:38.680 --> 00:38:41.560
If she lives without electricity...

00:38:41.640 --> 00:38:44.080
I've never heard anything like that.

00:38:44.160 --> 00:38:46.760
One of the methods was to not give
her electricity or water,

00:38:47.080 --> 00:38:50.600
not because she didn't pay her bills,
she paid, she didn't owe anything.

00:38:50.880 --> 00:38:53.440
It could very well be that if
you had lived in an apartment

00:38:53.520 --> 00:38:56.160
in Hatikvah neighborhood or Lod,

00:38:56.360 --> 00:38:58.480
they wouldn't
have behaved that way,

00:38:58.560 --> 00:39:02.440
but your house is worth a lot, and it's
in a super prestigious location in Jaffa.

00:39:02.640 --> 00:39:04.720
It's all tactics to get you to leave.

00:39:21.640 --> 00:39:24.840
What was strange to me at first,

00:39:25.120 --> 00:39:28.000
was meeting other people,
but it came very naturally for her.

00:39:28.680 --> 00:39:33.920
And she quickly picked up new words in Arabic,
and said "halas" and "shwayeh shwayeh."

00:39:35.520 --> 00:39:37.800
We met at our children's kindergarten,

00:39:38.000 --> 00:39:42.600
Noga came, and Hasun liked Noga
from the first moment, what can I tell you?

00:39:42.680 --> 00:39:46.520
On September 1st, I brought her
to school and I was standing outside,

00:39:46.600 --> 00:39:47.880
and I didn't know anyone,

00:39:48.000 --> 00:39:52.360
and there were
only Arab families outside.

00:39:52.880 --> 00:39:54.640
I suddenly thought to myself,

00:39:55.000 --> 00:39:59.080
"If this is an Arab-only kindergarten,
it's probably not as good."

00:39:59.160 --> 00:40:00.400
That's what went through my mind.

00:40:00.480 --> 00:40:04.560
And then you encounter
things that are complex.

00:40:04.640 --> 00:40:07.400
It wasn't pleasant for me to encounter that.

00:40:07.480 --> 00:40:11.080
But then, after a few days, you know...

00:40:12.160 --> 00:40:14.560
You see your children behaving
a certain way,

00:40:14.640 --> 00:40:17.400
and for me that was like
looking in the mirror.

00:40:17.520 --> 00:40:20.720
To us, to the local residents,

00:40:20.840 --> 00:40:24.400
or the Jaffa Arabs, it's like a left-wing
Ashkenazi woman showed up and said,

00:40:24.480 --> 00:40:28.200
"Okay, everything's fine,
I'm cute, everything's fine."

00:40:28.440 --> 00:40:31.160
So what do you want?
For the Jews to stay out of Jaffa?

00:40:31.560 --> 00:40:34.160
It's not that Jews bother me
because they're here,

00:40:34.360 --> 00:40:36.560
what's happening now
is what bothers me,

00:40:36.720 --> 00:40:40.240
that in order for X to move in,
Y has to move out,

00:40:40.560 --> 00:40:42.240
and where is Y going to go?

00:40:42.560 --> 00:40:46.040
Listen, the things you're saying
are hard to hear,

00:40:46.120 --> 00:40:50.440
so obviously being on the side
that is the target of those feelings

00:40:50.520 --> 00:40:52.320
feels...

00:40:53.160 --> 00:40:55.880
terrible. -Yes, because ultimately
you can't feel something

00:40:55.960 --> 00:40:57.440
if you don't experience it.

00:40:57.520 --> 00:40:58.920
You, Dafna, came,

00:40:59.160 --> 00:41:01.920
so Fatma left. Muhammad left.

00:41:02.000 --> 00:41:03.960
Because you came.
You understand?

00:41:11.400 --> 00:41:12.880
It was a difficult conversation.

00:41:12.960 --> 00:41:15.720
I may even have felt a little
despair in that conversation.

00:41:15.880 --> 00:41:17.760
Part of my optimism has shattered.

00:41:20.080 --> 00:41:21.920
She's just hopeless
because it's frustrating.

00:41:22.000 --> 00:41:24.240
I see it among the Jewish population,

00:41:24.440 --> 00:41:26.120
that because of the housing problems

00:41:26.200 --> 00:41:27.680
it needs to reinvent itself.

00:41:27.760 --> 00:41:30.120
But she asked me a question
I really didn't have the answer to.

00:41:30.200 --> 00:41:31.560
"If you knew those were the sentiments

00:41:31.640 --> 00:41:35.280
"of the local Arab population,
would you still have moved to Jaffa?"

00:41:35.680 --> 00:41:38.440
Sure. Of course.

00:41:38.720 --> 00:41:40.480
What do you mean?
What about my hardships?

00:41:40.560 --> 00:41:41.960
Just because another population
is struggling,

00:41:42.080 --> 00:41:44.720
I have to make compromises
in my own life?

00:41:44.840 --> 00:41:45.880
Why?

00:41:45.960 --> 00:41:49.320
"By moving here,
you've become part of the problem."

00:41:49.400 --> 00:41:50.800
She needs to be honest with herself.

00:41:50.920 --> 00:41:53.320
What would she have done in our situation?

00:41:53.560 --> 00:41:56.400
In recent months,
Jaffa is constantly in the headlines,

00:41:56.480 --> 00:42:00.800
hardly a night that goes by
without explosions, gunfire or arson.

00:42:00.880 --> 00:42:03.880
There are more and more
assassination attempts.

00:42:03.960 --> 00:42:06.160
Yusef experienced it first-hand.

00:42:06.360 --> 00:42:09.200
Due to one state-owned apartment
and a large family

00:42:09.280 --> 00:42:12.880
that grew over the years until it split up,

00:42:13.120 --> 00:42:15.320
an unstoppable bloody battle began.

00:42:15.400 --> 00:42:17.840
Public housing in Jaffa has become

00:42:18.000 --> 00:42:21.880
one of the main causes
for shootings and violence.

00:42:22.000 --> 00:42:23.960
They fight over every apartment,

00:42:24.040 --> 00:42:27.560
because it's no longer possible to rent an
apartment at a reasonable price.

00:42:27.640 --> 00:42:32.360
They say that because
a new, affluent population is moving in,

00:42:33.000 --> 00:42:35.320
housing opportunities are dwindling

00:42:35.400 --> 00:42:37.520
and then they start fighting,

00:42:38.040 --> 00:42:41.400
all the cousins fight among themselves
about who will live in the apartment,

00:42:41.520 --> 00:42:43.280
and it leads to murder, it's crazy.

00:42:44.040 --> 00:42:46.520
What can we say?
It's not in our inner circle.

00:42:46.600 --> 00:42:50.280
Yes, but it's right here.
-Yes.

00:42:50.840 --> 00:42:52.200
It's across the street.

00:42:53.600 --> 00:42:58.400
Imagine a young man
who wants to get married, make a living,

00:42:58.480 --> 00:43:03.120
and a small apartment here costs 650 thousand USD.
How can I get that much money?

00:43:03.200 --> 00:43:05.720
That creates a situation
where a person has to find a solution.

00:43:05.960 --> 00:43:09.080
The immediate solution is criminal activity.

00:43:09.720 --> 00:43:14.520
Today we're seeing an increase
in real estate disputes within families.

00:43:14.640 --> 00:43:19.120
There are very large houses in Jaffa that in
the past belonged to one nuclear family,

00:43:19.200 --> 00:43:21.880
and families grow,
and that creates conflicts.

00:43:22.040 --> 00:43:24.120
Conflicts can be solved in several ways.

00:43:24.640 --> 00:43:27.160
Unfortunately, the most common way
in Jaffa is with violence.

00:43:40.320 --> 00:43:43.320
Pay someone 6,500 USD
to murder me?

00:43:51.800 --> 00:43:54.200
Nowadays, the good guys
in Jaffa get screwed.

00:43:58.560 --> 00:44:00.960
A house on the first line to the sea

00:44:01.040 --> 00:44:02.600
Is worth now 2 million USD.

00:44:02.680 --> 00:44:05.520
And is a part of the public housing Law,
belong to the government.

00:44:05.800 --> 00:44:07.800
I'm the only one who holds
the rights to it.

00:44:07.960 --> 00:44:13.720
I have an aunt who was planning
on giving this apartment to her kids.

00:44:14.160 --> 00:44:16.640
And the fact is, that they're now
living in that house.

00:44:18.120 --> 00:44:21.360
When my late uncle, Isa, passed away, they
asked me nicely not to go into the house,

00:44:21.440 --> 00:44:22.600
they wanted to have the wake
in the house,

00:44:22.680 --> 00:44:25.280
and "after four days, when it's over,
you can come back home."

00:44:27.680 --> 00:44:30.520
I waited four days,
I was about to go back home,

00:44:30.640 --> 00:44:33.000
and she said,
"Get out of here.

00:44:33.240 --> 00:44:35.160
"It's my house, my children's house.

00:44:35.520 --> 00:44:37.400
"If you're a man," in those words,

00:44:37.520 --> 00:44:40.520
"If you're a man, come on in. If you
come in, you won't leave this house alive."

00:44:42.400 --> 00:44:45.280
I went to an officer
at the police station

00:44:45.360 --> 00:44:48.440
and told him, "It's a crime,
I'm the tenant of that house."

00:44:48.520 --> 00:44:52.560
And he told me, "We don't get involved
in family arguments. It's not our problem."

00:44:54.680 --> 00:44:56.120
I went back to work at the pizzeria.

00:44:59.400 --> 00:45:02.680
I see a motorcycle standing there
and then I don't remember anything.

00:45:02.760 --> 00:45:04.120
I saw it on the video.

00:45:11.320 --> 00:45:13.920
I woke up two and a half weeks later,
I was on a respirator and under anesthesia.

00:45:14.200 --> 00:45:18.480
I was shot twice.
One bullet is still in my spine,

00:45:18.600 --> 00:45:22.400
and they removed one from
where my lung is, it stopped there.

00:45:26.200 --> 00:45:30.240
People don't become criminals
because their DNA is damaged.

00:45:31.200 --> 00:45:34.760
People become criminals because their
environment doesn't leave them any choice.

00:45:35.120 --> 00:45:38.760
Nobody thought a real estate tycoon
was going to buy

00:45:39.000 --> 00:45:44.440
the house next door, and all the prices in the
neighborhood would go up by several millions.

00:45:44.800 --> 00:45:47.800
So you can understand
why people are angry and resentful.

00:45:48.080 --> 00:45:49.920
When there's a very big gap

00:45:50.120 --> 00:45:52.680
between the old population
and the new population,

00:45:52.800 --> 00:45:56.080
neither of them
is comfortable living like that.

00:45:56.200 --> 00:45:59.280
It leads to extreme situations, and we
see it both in Israel and abroad,

00:45:59.520 --> 00:46:01.320
that the communities
start fencing themselves off,

00:46:01.400 --> 00:46:04.080
After all, what do they say in Jaffa
with all these neighborhoods,

00:46:04.160 --> 00:46:07.720
with the fences and the guards
and the gates?

00:46:07.880 --> 00:46:10.960
It's not just,
"I don't want you to see me."

00:46:11.360 --> 00:46:12.920
It's, "I don't want to see you either."

00:46:13.320 --> 00:46:16.280
Imagine Jaffa's real estate
problem was solved.

00:46:16.360 --> 00:46:19.880
That would reduce
the tension here by 50%.

00:46:22.040 --> 00:46:26.280
If you have any questions or you don't
agree with what I'm saying,

00:46:26.360 --> 00:46:29.840
feel free to ask and respond
during the meeting.

00:46:29.960 --> 00:46:33.320
The overall situation and feeling

00:46:35.120 --> 00:46:37.320
is that they're pushing us out of Jaffa.

00:46:37.520 --> 00:46:39.680
How many schools
offer computer science classes?

00:46:40.160 --> 00:46:44.680
How many schools have
tools that help you

00:46:44.760 --> 00:46:47.960
get accepted into
medical school or law school?

00:46:48.040 --> 00:46:49.720
How many students are accepted
into these professions?

00:46:49.920 --> 00:46:52.520
I want to help
and I want you to be creative.

00:46:52.600 --> 00:46:55.360
Ten years from now, will young people
your age only work in hotels

00:46:55.440 --> 00:46:56.600
or will they own hotels?

00:46:56.760 --> 00:46:58.480
The struggle for the city
also needs to be economic.

00:46:58.560 --> 00:47:03.520
For the benefit of our society's economy.

00:47:04.520 --> 00:47:07.160
The important thing is for
the young people to see role models,

00:47:07.440 --> 00:47:09.720
to see an Arab man who isn't afraid,

00:47:10.160 --> 00:47:12.320
who cares about the Arab population,

00:47:12.440 --> 00:47:16.400
who says, "I want to be involved
in everything related to education,

00:47:16.520 --> 00:47:21.080
"everything related to how this city is built,
the public space, and the issue of violence.

00:47:23.520 --> 00:47:26.520
We're all "Yaffa shetti."

00:47:26.760 --> 00:47:27.680
Good luck, bro.

00:47:28.640 --> 00:47:30.840
Here comes the prince of Jaffa!

00:47:31.040 --> 00:47:32.960
The most important thing is
that we give people hope.

00:48:03.800 --> 00:48:05.120
Look at the sea.

00:48:05.880 --> 00:48:09.560
It's amazing how the real estate
here has gotten so crazy.

00:48:12.000 --> 00:48:14.440
When was the last time you contacted
the Public Housing Department?

00:48:14.600 --> 00:48:18.240
There's a court ruling
and it that says she has

00:48:18.360 --> 00:48:22.040
two years until they come
and evict her from the house.

00:48:22.160 --> 00:48:25.560
I don't want to find my sisters
and my little brother

00:48:25.680 --> 00:48:28.280
out on the street.

00:48:28.360 --> 00:48:31.080
Where will your mother go?
-That's the question.

00:48:31.440 --> 00:48:33.760
Hi, how are you?
-Nice to meet you, I'm Eran.

00:48:33.840 --> 00:48:36.360
Hi, I'm Attorney Gili Yeshayahu.
-How are you?

00:48:36.600 --> 00:48:39.000
We're asking some questions,
trying to understand what happened.

00:48:39.240 --> 00:48:41.880
My mother died ten years ago.
-Okay.

00:48:41.960 --> 00:48:46.320
And my father, 11 years ago.
-And then you filed a request to continue?

00:48:46.400 --> 00:48:49.320
The day my mother died,
that very day they called me,

00:48:49.440 --> 00:48:51.400
"Did your mother die?"
-And they told you to leave.

00:48:51.480 --> 00:48:53.040
Leave.
-"Leave the house."

00:48:53.120 --> 00:48:55.480
How did they know my mother died that day?
-They know.

00:48:55.560 --> 00:48:57.440
When they want to know, they know.
-Yes.

00:48:57.520 --> 00:49:01.800
And the same way they knew, they could've
contacted you a day earlier,

00:49:02.840 --> 00:49:04.160
if they had wanted to.
-Listen,

00:49:04.240 --> 00:49:06.160
I'm not familiar
with your situation in-depth,

00:49:06.320 --> 00:49:10.040
but in a normal situation,
if I lived in this house,

00:49:10.200 --> 00:49:15.680
if my parents died, I'm asking
to be recognized as the successor,

00:49:15.840 --> 00:49:17.920
and I'm also asking
to purchase the rights,

00:49:18.000 --> 00:49:19.800
and that happens in Jaffa all the time.

00:49:19.960 --> 00:49:23.480
In recent years, because this area
has become a gold mine,

00:49:23.560 --> 00:49:28.120
and the demand and the pressure and
the desire to turn it into real estate,

00:49:28.280 --> 00:49:32.840
then sometimes the finger is light on the
trigger, and they tell you, "Get out."

00:49:33.040 --> 00:49:37.800
We need to see what procedure took place
in court, what the procedure is in court.

00:49:37.880 --> 00:49:39.960
We need to look at it more in-depth.

00:50:02.480 --> 00:50:08.560
In the mid-1980s, Jaffa was refashioned,
rediscovered.

00:50:08.680 --> 00:50:10.480
Tel Aviv adopts Jaffa.

00:50:10.600 --> 00:50:12.800
Institutionally, a Jaffa Planning Team
is established,

00:50:12.880 --> 00:50:17.160
which leads the movement
which can be defined as gentrification.

00:50:18.760 --> 00:50:19.920
Doron.

00:50:20.760 --> 00:50:23.400
Do you remember this building?
-Wonderful.

00:50:23.640 --> 00:50:26.360
You know what this is called?

00:50:26.440 --> 00:50:28.600
"Liwan."
-Very good.

00:50:28.680 --> 00:50:31.320
This was an abandoned building.
-Moments before they demolished it.

00:50:31.400 --> 00:50:32.960
Right, absolutely.

00:50:33.480 --> 00:50:34.960
That was a long time ago.

00:50:35.200 --> 00:50:40.520
Either 1984 or 1985.
-Something like that. -Yes.

00:50:40.600 --> 00:50:42.600
Shamai Assif was the city engineer.

00:50:42.680 --> 00:50:45.320
He invited Sergio and me to his office.

00:50:46.200 --> 00:50:49.160
There was a big map of Tel Aviv-Jaffa
behind him.

00:50:49.840 --> 00:50:54.600
He put his hand at the bottom,
he didn't even look where it was, and said,

00:50:54.680 --> 00:50:57.200
"I need someone to do something..."

00:50:57.360 --> 00:50:58.920
"in this area."
-"Someone to plan."

00:50:59.000 --> 00:51:00.960
"Look at this and get to work."

00:51:01.120 --> 00:51:03.520
That's how the Jaffa Team was established.
-Totally.

00:51:06.840 --> 00:51:10.920
Over time,
we found plans to clear out Ajami

00:51:11.520 --> 00:51:14.640
and I interpreted that as a desire to clear

00:51:14.720 --> 00:51:18.120
the local Arab population out of here,

00:51:18.360 --> 00:51:23.040
and to build what was known
back then as "luxury residences,"

00:51:23.440 --> 00:51:25.560
which are high-rises like in north Tel Aviv.

00:51:25.920 --> 00:51:29.160
So those were two good things,
make a lot of money in real estate

00:51:29.480 --> 00:51:32.080
and clear out
the local population from here.

00:51:38.000 --> 00:51:42.880
When I arrived in Ajami,
I fell madly in love with this place

00:51:43.400 --> 00:51:45.520
and I loved these buildings,

00:51:45.600 --> 00:51:48.600
and we were desperate to cancel the plan

00:51:48.680 --> 00:51:50.880
in order to preserve Ajami.
-Yes.

00:51:50.960 --> 00:51:55.160
We also often found ourselves standing
in front of bulldozers and stopping them.

00:51:55.480 --> 00:51:59.960
So Doron told me that the very idea that
we're here as municipality representatives

00:52:00.800 --> 00:52:02.480
isn't good news for the area.

00:52:08.160 --> 00:52:13.080
The old plans we encountered said "demolish"

00:52:13.840 --> 00:52:18.040
and the plans we created said "stop."

00:52:18.400 --> 00:52:19.960
Preserve the existing buildings.

00:52:20.600 --> 00:52:22.320
Restore the authentic colors,

00:52:22.480 --> 00:52:26.040
restore the details,
the railings, the special pillars,

00:52:26.320 --> 00:52:28.240
the window cornices, the balconies.

00:52:28.320 --> 00:52:31.720
All these things restore
the self-respect to these houses

00:52:31.800 --> 00:52:33.520
that were neglected for so long.

00:52:33.840 --> 00:52:35.080
To a certain degree, I believe,

00:52:35.160 --> 00:52:38.680
they also restore the self-respect to
the residents who live in these houses,

00:52:38.880 --> 00:52:40.600
and that might be the most important thing.

00:52:40.680 --> 00:52:44.560
And these changes preserved
the historical characteristics,

00:52:44.640 --> 00:52:46.360
because that was the plan's intention.

00:52:52.160 --> 00:52:56.280
The truth is, I didn't believe we'd
be able to bring people to Ajami.

00:52:56.680 --> 00:53:02.440
People were fleeing the area
and looking down on it.

00:53:02.640 --> 00:53:03.920
And then we said to Ajami,

00:53:04.000 --> 00:53:07.560
"It's not so bad if a new Jewish
population moves here.

00:53:07.840 --> 00:53:10.600
"There will always be co-existence,
and it will always be good things."

00:53:15.800 --> 00:53:18.640
After 44 years, the city passes
a master plan that says

00:53:19.360 --> 00:53:22.800
we're going to preserve the atmosphere,

00:53:22.880 --> 00:53:26.520
the village like quality and homes
can be no more than four stories.

00:53:29.720 --> 00:53:32.000
There was the sense
that this was going to bring

00:53:33.080 --> 00:53:36.520
a beautiful Greek village
spilling down to the sea

00:53:36.600 --> 00:53:38.560
and preserve everybody's quality of life.

00:53:39.320 --> 00:53:41.200
"The Jaffa Slope"
is one of the largest building plans

00:53:41.280 --> 00:53:44.840
in the history of the State of Israel.

00:53:45.560 --> 00:53:48.280
In the area covered with garbage,
the municipality is planning to establish

00:53:48.360 --> 00:53:50.360
a public park similar
to Charles Clore Park,

00:53:50.720 --> 00:53:53.480
hotels, restaurants
and a neighborhood of private homes.

00:53:54.040 --> 00:53:57.520
There was a shallow beach there,
dirty, polluted.

00:53:57.840 --> 00:54:01.680
Over the course of several years
we removed construction waste from there

00:54:01.920 --> 00:54:06.760
in order to build a park between
the residential area and the seafront.

00:54:07.040 --> 00:54:08.480
For whose benefit?

00:54:08.680 --> 00:54:10.400
Yours? Mine? No.

00:54:10.520 --> 00:54:12.520
Only for the residents of Jaffa
who live there.

00:54:13.080 --> 00:54:17.120
What's wrong with that? You have the sea,
a park and a residential area.

00:54:17.200 --> 00:54:20.600
Isn't that good? I'm certain
the residents are happy about it.

00:54:21.400 --> 00:54:25.400
But in fact, what happens
when you can only build four stories

00:54:25.560 --> 00:54:28.120
and in front of you
is a brand-new beautiful park?

00:54:29.000 --> 00:54:32.320
Those houses are unbelievably expensive,

00:54:32.960 --> 00:54:35.000
and the value of the land soars.

00:54:44.160 --> 00:54:45.880
The unit starts from this line.

00:54:46.880 --> 00:54:47.920
Hello.

00:54:52.200 --> 00:54:54.680
Whoever wins the bid
becomes the owner

00:54:54.760 --> 00:54:57.280
of all the sub-plots that are sold,
including the yard.

00:54:57.360 --> 00:55:00.160
What's the story with the last tenant?
Does he still have rights?

00:55:00.240 --> 00:55:01.520
Of course not.

00:55:01.920 --> 00:55:03.400
The property is vacant.

00:55:03.600 --> 00:55:05.040
There's no problem here.

00:55:05.120 --> 00:55:07.320
Whose was it?
-His.

00:55:07.960 --> 00:55:09.160
They kicked him out of his house.

00:55:09.360 --> 00:55:10.800
Do the people here know that?

00:55:10.920 --> 00:55:12.320
Yes, but they pretend that they don't,

00:55:12.400 --> 00:55:13.840
because they're only thinking
about money,

00:55:13.920 --> 00:55:15.640
"How can we make more money?"

00:55:16.360 --> 00:55:18.600
They don't care about emotions
or about the people who used to live here.

00:55:18.680 --> 00:55:21.680
Children, family,
whether they were kicked out or not.

00:55:21.760 --> 00:55:23.160
All he sees is an object,

00:55:23.240 --> 00:55:25.920
there's a 300,000 USD property here,
that'll turn into 600,000 USD.

00:55:27.000 --> 00:55:29.320
This isn't a fake story,
it's real.

00:55:29.400 --> 00:55:33.000
People used to live here with a little boy,
and they threw them out,

00:55:33.360 --> 00:55:35.040
they didn't even give them
the right to buy it.

00:55:37.920 --> 00:55:39.240
It's me, okay?

00:55:39.400 --> 00:55:40.680
I used to lived here.

00:55:41.760 --> 00:55:45.680
Most of the people didn't understand
the fragility of their status,

00:55:45.760 --> 00:55:48.840
that's why a considerable group of them
didn't play the real estate game.

00:55:49.000 --> 00:55:51.560
The ones who did understand
the real estate game and its power

00:55:51.880 --> 00:55:54.760
were the developers
who came from the outside

00:55:54.840 --> 00:55:59.400
and they started cooperating
with public institutions.

00:55:59.640 --> 00:56:02.160
All of a sudden,
you find these ads that say

00:56:02.680 --> 00:56:06.800
"Home being sold with residents inside."

00:56:06.920 --> 00:56:09.280
With the residents.

00:56:10.840 --> 00:56:14.640
Since the protected tenants
are basically living in houses

00:56:14.960 --> 00:56:18.960
that can be used as potential
for developers to invest in

00:56:19.360 --> 00:56:21.720
and they'll be willing
to pay millions for them,

00:56:21.880 --> 00:56:23.640
just for the rotten walls.

00:56:24.360 --> 00:56:26.760
On the other hand,
they have the tenant who lives there,

00:56:26.920 --> 00:56:29.080
who pays them around
30 USD a month,

00:56:29.160 --> 00:56:33.360
and look, that's expensive property
and people who hardly pay anything.

00:56:33.520 --> 00:56:37.280
So if the state
can maximize profits,

00:56:37.920 --> 00:56:38.920
then why not?

00:56:40.320 --> 00:56:43.760
The Israel Land Authority expects the
properties to be maintained and sold.

00:56:44.120 --> 00:56:46.760
The National Housing Company has employees
and needs to finance all of it,

00:56:46.840 --> 00:56:49.680
and it needs to continue selling properties
so it can go on existing,

00:56:50.080 --> 00:56:51.840
and that's the way things
have continued until now.

00:56:51.960 --> 00:56:54.440
Are you from the National Housing Company?
-I'm not from there,

00:56:54.520 --> 00:56:55.960
I work for them.

00:56:56.200 --> 00:56:57.720
Then can you give us
a little explanation?

00:56:57.880 --> 00:57:00.560
Yes, of course. Who is "us"?
The two of you? Come on.

00:57:01.080 --> 00:57:04.520
Just like if you work at a bank
and they tell you you have to make

00:57:04.800 --> 00:57:08.520
X number of loans a day,

00:57:08.640 --> 00:57:11.160
here you have to carry out
X number of evictions,

00:57:11.240 --> 00:57:14.480
X number of collections, X number of legal
proceedings, and you need to meet those goals.

00:57:15.200 --> 00:57:17.760
An employee who meets
the goals or even surpasses them

00:57:17.840 --> 00:57:21.000
receives premiums
for this outstanding work.

00:57:21.080 --> 00:57:22.640
That's how it works.

00:57:26.680 --> 00:57:31.960
When people who live in an apartment
are sold along with the apartment,

00:57:32.200 --> 00:57:36.400
you shouldn't be surprised that we're
talking about an initiated transfer.

00:57:36.840 --> 00:57:39.920
Now it doesn't matter who initiated it.

00:57:40.280 --> 00:57:44.720
The ones ultimately paying the price
are the Jaffa residents,

00:57:44.840 --> 00:57:46.280
and it's usually the Arab residents.

00:57:58.960 --> 00:58:01.280
What matters is how we handle it.

00:58:01.360 --> 00:58:05.320
I have a problem that we accept
the fact that we're victims

00:58:05.400 --> 00:58:07.360
and the Jewish population decides

00:58:07.440 --> 00:58:09.440
whether we're victims or not.

00:58:13.720 --> 00:58:16.480
Why should I let the other side
decide for me?

00:58:18.800 --> 00:58:20.960
Abed Abu Shhadeh - Tel Aviv City Councilman

00:58:23.400 --> 00:58:26.280
The municipality is very big,
it's not just the mayor,

00:58:26.480 --> 00:58:28.160
it's not just the CEO,
it's many people,

00:58:28.640 --> 00:58:30.960
but as the Arab population
it's our job

00:58:31.040 --> 00:58:36.160
to know how to navigate all that
and help our population as much as we can.

00:58:38.840 --> 00:58:41.440
We have countless struggles ahead of us.

00:58:42.320 --> 00:58:44.760
The Arab community in Jaffa
started leaving the city

00:58:44.840 --> 00:58:46.880
not only because of the cost of living,

00:58:48.520 --> 00:58:51.720
but because of a lack of faith
that an Arab family can

00:58:51.800 --> 00:58:54.360
safely raise a family in Jaffa.

00:58:54.880 --> 00:58:57.720
I'm not here to accuse anyone,

00:58:58.640 --> 00:59:02.560
and honestly,
I'm not interested in political struggles.

00:59:06.560 --> 00:59:09.800
The reality in Jaffa is that
we've reached the point

00:59:12.360 --> 00:59:13.760
where it's okay to spill our blood.

00:59:14.520 --> 00:59:17.120
and there are no words to describe
the feeling when we see

00:59:17.200 --> 00:59:19.840
how our community is falling apart

00:59:20.680 --> 00:59:22.640
and there is nothing we can do about it.

00:59:48.840 --> 00:59:49.920
Hello.

00:59:50.880 --> 00:59:52.560
How are you?
-Okay.

00:59:53.240 --> 00:59:56.520
The Public Housing Department dragged you
into a process that is right for it.

00:59:56.720 --> 01:00:00.800
It's a bit more complex today, because
there's a ruling, and that has to be obeyed,

01:00:01.040 --> 01:00:05.320
and you can't ignore the fact that it exists,
and even if you go to some proceeding,

01:00:05.480 --> 01:00:08.280
the first thing they'll say is, "Look,
there's a ruling, and she's not vacating,

01:00:08.360 --> 01:00:10.320
"and she's in violation."

01:00:10.400 --> 01:00:12.720
We need to think and see...
-I didn't trespass.

01:00:12.800 --> 01:00:15.000
I grew up there.
-I know you didn't trespass.

01:00:15.080 --> 01:00:18.080
I'm saying we need to think so that
we don't do any damage.

01:00:18.160 --> 01:00:21.120
Tomorrow morning theoretically
they could

01:00:21.280 --> 01:00:24.160
go to the authorities and enforce it.

01:00:24.240 --> 01:00:26.720
I see that they're clearing out
apartments and houses

01:00:27.040 --> 01:00:29.160
that are on the first and second
lines to the sea.

01:00:29.480 --> 01:00:32.800
Why there in particular?
Why is nobody clearing out apartments in Acre?

01:00:32.920 --> 01:00:35.040
We have a case in Nahariya (north of Israel)

01:00:35.120 --> 01:00:37.680
the woman's been living in the same house
for 50 years, no one's done a thing.

01:00:37.760 --> 01:00:39.080
I can't sleep.

01:00:39.160 --> 01:00:43.160
I'm constantly afraid.
-I'm familiar with that. -Every day.

01:00:43.560 --> 01:00:46.640
Maybe your disadvantage was
the lack of advice you received

01:00:46.720 --> 01:00:51.320
and in these bureaucratic actions that need
to be done. There's no way around it,

01:00:51.400 --> 01:00:52.760
that's the system.

01:00:52.840 --> 01:00:55.400
You need to play the game
according to the system.

01:00:56.920 --> 01:00:58.240
Right now we don't have a thing.

01:01:03.960 --> 01:01:07.480
Most municipalities invest money
in a neighborhood or build something new

01:01:07.640 --> 01:01:10.800
or improve the appearance of the city,
because they know they can bring...

01:01:11.400 --> 01:01:14.120
I hate this term, "an affluent population."

01:01:15.000 --> 01:01:19.480
When the Jaffa Team talks about
"strengthening the population" in 1985,

01:01:19.640 --> 01:01:22.600
we need to ask who will actually
be coming here.

01:01:22.680 --> 01:01:24.160
Who will this population be?

01:01:24.440 --> 01:01:27.040
There's no doubt,
even to the planners themselves,

01:01:27.560 --> 01:01:31.040
that the population will be
a well-to-do Jewish population.

01:01:31.120 --> 01:01:34.880
The plan is to move in
an affluent population,

01:01:35.040 --> 01:01:39.040
a population that will be able
to change Jaffa's image,

01:01:39.280 --> 01:01:42.480
that will be able to bring young people,

01:01:42.720 --> 01:01:47.000
people of a relatively
high socioeconomic status,

01:01:47.080 --> 01:01:52.040
so that they'll be able to turn Jaffa
into a living, breathing neighborhood.

01:02:28.720 --> 01:02:31.160
Since the city is involved in the change,

01:02:31.520 --> 01:02:34.200
is often the instigator of change,

01:02:34.560 --> 01:02:38.080
cities need to be aware of
how to manage the change,

01:02:38.720 --> 01:02:43.120
and it needs to start from who are the most
disadvantaged people there

01:02:43.320 --> 01:02:45.360
and how do we make sure we protect them.

01:02:45.600 --> 01:02:47.640
And we don't have thinking like that in Israel,

01:02:47.880 --> 01:02:49.520
not in most of our neighborhoods.

01:02:53.640 --> 01:02:57.560
In order to prevent the pressures
of gentrification,

01:02:57.880 --> 01:03:00.960
you need to go to great efforts,

01:03:01.360 --> 01:03:06.040
that to a great extent, are created
with artificial means.

01:03:06.120 --> 01:03:09.880
Today we would've handled the process
more wisely.

01:03:10.440 --> 01:03:13.000
First of all, we'd make sure
to transfer ownership

01:03:13.280 --> 01:03:15.160
over to the local residents.

01:03:15.400 --> 01:03:18.760
So, the smart thing, the right thing,
for the city to have done,

01:03:18.880 --> 01:03:21.160
would have been to say
we're going house to house

01:03:21.240 --> 01:03:23.800
and telling residents
that they should buy their homes.

01:03:23.880 --> 01:03:27.440
We're setting up a loan fund,
to give them a loan to be able to purchase it

01:03:27.480 --> 01:03:30.760
and we're going to purchase it with them,
so that when they redevelop it,

01:03:30.880 --> 01:03:35.120
or we're going to help them redevelop it,
we take all the profit from the redevelopment

01:03:35.160 --> 01:03:38.280
and we put it into a loan fund
for affordable housing for Arabs in Jaffa,

01:03:38.400 --> 01:03:40.400
because otherwise
they're going to be displaced.

01:03:41.360 --> 01:03:44.400
There are currently
three bids for homes

01:03:44.520 --> 01:03:48.240
where I think I initiated the evictions
of all three of them.

01:03:48.320 --> 01:03:51.440
I thought that when I'd see
these bids, I'd feel some satisfaction

01:03:51.720 --> 01:03:55.760
because things I've done
are moving forward

01:03:56.320 --> 01:03:57.480
but I don't feel that way.

01:03:57.560 --> 01:03:59.160
The state might make
a little more money from it,

01:03:59.240 --> 01:04:03.160
but we're still losing
some of our humanity in this issue,

01:04:03.240 --> 01:04:04.880
that's why it bothers me a little.

01:04:08.040 --> 01:04:10.160
So where do you see yourself
10 years from now?

01:04:10.880 --> 01:04:13.320
That's the problem, that I...

01:04:13.960 --> 01:04:16.240
I don't see myself
10 years from now.

01:04:16.600 --> 01:04:19.360
It's not going to get any better,
only worse.

01:04:19.680 --> 01:04:21.520
The good days are over.

01:04:33.640 --> 01:04:36.920
We've become an entire population
of lawbreakers

01:04:37.000 --> 01:04:38.680
even though we're living
in our own apartments.

01:04:45.480 --> 01:04:48.200
I don't see Jaffa filled
with Jaffa residents like it is now.

01:05:29.400 --> 01:05:32.480
But ultimately, when it'll have
all those beautiful things,

01:05:32.560 --> 01:05:35.920
like an amazing park,
an amazing school,

01:05:36.120 --> 01:05:39.960
amazing bike paths,
lots of small cafes,

01:05:40.040 --> 01:05:41.880
bakeries, shops,

01:05:42.000 --> 01:05:44.160
a health food store, a pet shop,

01:05:44.280 --> 01:05:47.080
everything will be amazing,
the neighborhood will look perfect,

01:05:48.440 --> 01:05:51.400
none of the old neighbors
will be there to enjoy it.

01:05:51.560 --> 01:05:53.800
It will be completely "clean."

01:05:54.480 --> 01:05:58.200
Years later, an old person will drive by

01:05:58.280 --> 01:06:00.800
with his grandchildren and say,

01:06:01.880 --> 01:06:05.640
"We lived here on this street, but you can't
see the house because they built over it."