the financial capacities of most did not allow them the means to purchase the property, neither directly nor through auction, nor to pay the fines required to remain in their residences. After years of neglect and marginalization, in places like al-Ajami, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Jaffa, and the financial realities of Palestinian residents left no legitimate opportunities for them to remain in their homes. Therefore, these policies ultimately result in the expulsion of the Palestinian inhabitants from Jaffa. “What happens in auctions is that a company like Amidar announces there is an auction on, let us say, Abu Yousef’s home. They announce the time and location and they invite people to view the home and whoever pays more gets the home. So really, Abu Yousef or any other family in Jaffa have no control over their homes, they are not the owners.” Ramy Shayegh, 33-year old resident of Jaffa. Interview: 20 March 2017 In addition, the true intentions of the Israeli government were documented in structural plans outlined for the Palestinian neighborhoods throughout the years. For example, the Local Master Plan 2236 envisaged “the doubling of the Jewish population in the predominantly Arab neighborhoods overlooking the Mediterranean in Jaffa.”87 This specific plan was initially drafted and submitted for approval in 1965 and although it was not approved at that time, its implementation began immediately.88 The plan was eventually approved in 1995.89 With the privatization of state-controlled absentee properties under the Israeli Law Reform 2009, Israeli policies of discrimination and displacement in al-Ajami intensified, as well as in other Palestinian neighborhoods.90 These policies continue until today and the al-Ajami neighborhood is now considered a real estate hotspot for Jewish-Israeli buyers. 87 Daniel Monterescu, Jaffa Shared and Shattered: Contrived Coexistence in Israel/Palestine (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2015), 122. 88 Ravit Goldhaber, “The Jaffa Slope Project: An Analysis of “Jaffaesque” Narratives in the New Millennium,” Adalah, n.d., 52, available at: https://www.adalah.org/uploads/oldfiles/Public/ files/English/Publications/Makan/Makan-v2/Makan-Vol-2-Right-to-a-Spatial-Narrative-47-JaffaSlope-Project-Analysis-Jaffaesque-Narratives-in-New-Millennium-Ravit-Goldhaber.pdf [accessed 21 September 2017]. 89 Ibid. 90 Nufar Auni, and Oren Yiftachel, “The New Divided City? Planning and ‘Gray Space’ between Global North-West and South-East,” in The Routledge Handbook on Cities of Global South, eds: Susan Parnell and Sophie Oldfield (London and New York: Routledge, 2014), 499. 35