A veiled Arab woman walks past a poster for a clothing company July 30 outside a shopping center in the Jewish neighborhood of Pisgat Zeev in east Jerusalem. A small but growing number of Arabs are moving into Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem.

Jerusalem ? Yousef Majlaton moved into the Jerusalem neighborhood of Pisgat Zeev for such comforts as proper running water and regular garbage pickup. But he represents a potentially volatile twist in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute over the holy city.

The hillside sprawl of townhouses and apartment blocks was built for Jews, and Majlaton is a Palestinian.

Pisgat Zeev is part of Israel’s effort to fortify its presence in Jerusalem’s eastern half, which it captured in the 1967 war.

But Majlaton, his wife and three kids are among thousands who have crossed the housing lines to Pisgat Zeev and neighborhoods like it in a migration that is raising tempers among some Jewish residents.

It wasn’t so much the politics of this contested city that drew Majlaton to Pisgat Zeev, however; it was the prospect of escaping the potholed roads and scant municipal services he endured for 19 years while renting in an Arab neighborhood.

“You see that air conditioner?” he said, pointing to the large wall unit cooling his living room. “In the Arab areas, the electricity is too weak to run one that big.”

Majlaton, 50, says some Jewish neighbors are warming up to him, but the influx bothers others, who say they’re thinking of moving out or refuse to sell or rent to Arabs.

This is much more than a simple matter of real estate. Demographics could figure heavily in how Jerusalem is partitioned in a future peace deal. If that happens, it is expected the city will be split along ethnic lines — Jewish neighborhoods to Israel, Arab neighborhoods to Palestine.

Palestinians see east Jerusalem as their future capital. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vows the whole city will remain united as Israel’s capital.

Palestinians have long accused those among them who sell land to Jews of betraying their homeland, and last week similar language was heard from a group of rabbis. Meeting in Pisgat Zeev, they issued an edict denouncing Jews who sell land to Arabs as “traitors” and barring them from participating in communal prayers.

“This is a war, and if the Arabs conquer one neighborhood, they will conquer others and they will strangle the Jews,” said Hillel Weiss, a spokesman for the “New Sanhedrin,” which takes its name from the supreme court of ancient Israel.

In 2007, the latest year with available statistics, about 1,300 of Pisgat Zeev’s 42,000 residents were Arabs. In nearby French Hill, population 7,000, nearly one-sixth are Arabs, among them students at the neighboring Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Neve Yaakov, with 20,000 people, had 600 Arabs, according to the Israel Center for Jerusalem Studies, a respected think tank.

Weeks after the 1967 war, Israel annexed east Jerusalem with its major Jewish, Muslim and Christian holy sites in a move recognized by no other country. It continues to build housing in sensitive areas in defiance of U.S. protests.

Netanyahu says Arabs have the right to live anywhere in the city, and so should Jews, though the Old City’s Jewish Quarter is closed to Arabs.

Jerusalem’s mayor and city councilors are all Jewish. Almost all the city’s Arabs refuse to vote or run in municipal elections, saying that would be recognition of Israeli rule. But it deprives them of clout in competition for city spending.

Today, while west Jerusalem is overwhelmingly Jewish, the eastern half is an ethnic checkerboard. More than 180,000 Jews live there, most in places like Pisgat Zeev but also in enclaves in Arab areas. Nearly all the city’s 220,000 Palestinians live in eastern neighborhoods.