(13 Apr 2017) For many Israelis, Har Homa is another neighbourhood in Jerusalem, served by city bus lines and schools, with quiet streets lined with apartment buildings, pizza shops, supermarkets and pharmacies.
But for Palestinians and much of the world, this unassuming neighbourhood is an illegal settlement in east Jerusalem, and in some ways, the most damaging.
Har Homa lies on one of the last spaces of land linking the Palestinian areas of the West Bank to their hoped-for capital in east Jerusalem.
If city planners have their way, Har Homa will soon become one of Jerusalem's largest Jewish neighbourhoods, expanding a presence that many believe has already dealt a devastating blow to the Palestinian dream of independence.
Herzl Yechezkel, a Har Homa community activist supports the expansion and says he hopes that land as far as Tekoa in Gush Etzion, around eight miles south (approximately 13 kilometres), will be settled with a view to expanding the city of Jerusalem that way in the future.
Standing proudly on his spacious balcony, Yechezkel pointed across a valley to biblical Bethlehem in the West Bank, neighbouring villages and a Christian monastery.
If all goes according to plan, he said, that empty valley will soon be covered with hundreds of homes for more Har Homa residents.
For the Palestinians, the presence of Har Homa, also known as Homat Shmuel, is especially painful.
Aziz Abu Teir, the mukhtar, or community leader, of Umm Tuba, a neighbouring Palestinian village, believes the Palestinian have no way to prevent the construction.
Teir says he feels like the settlement "is going to swallow" Arab neighbourhoods.
Fifty years after Israel captured east Jerusalem, Israel and the Palestinians remain as divided as ever over the future of the sensitive area, home to major shrines of Judaism, Islam and Christianity.
Aziz Abu Teir says he used to believe in a future with Israeli and Palestinians co-existing peacefully, but has changed his mind and now he thinks it looks "gloomy" for his descendants.
The conflicting claims are now heating up as US President Donald Trump has taken office and held talks with Israel about what settlement construction he is willing to tolerate.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under American pressure to curb some settlement construction in the West Bank, says east Jerusalem will not be included in any understanding with the US.
In fact, he has vowed to step up settlement activity in east Jerusalem neighbourhoods like Har Homa.
Over the past half century, Israel has built more than 130 settlements throughout the West Bank and more than half a dozen Jewish housing developments ringing east Jerusalem, in moves that many believe are meant to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.
These settlements today are home to over 600,000 Israelis, roughly one-third of them in east Jerusalem.
While Israel has never staked a formal claim to the West Bank, it says east Jerusalem, home to the city's most important religious sites, is not up for negotiations.
It annexed the area, along with neighbouring parts of the West Bank, after the 1967 war, and says the entire expanded city is its eternal capital.
In contrast to West Bank Palestinians, those in Jerusalem have Israeli-issued residency documents and can even apply for citizenship.
Israel believes that granting these rights bolsters its claim that its Jewish neighbourhoods are not settlements.

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