West Bank and the Gaza Strip will have different time zones

[Ephraim Silverberg]

On Sat, 27 Aug 2011, Paul Eggert wrote:

> Thanks.  I suppose this means we new zone Asia/East_Jerusalem,
> since East Jerusalem is the largest city in the West Bank.

There is no city "East Jerusalem" just like there is no city
"West Jerusalem".  43% of the population of "East Jerusalem"
are Jewish Israeli citizens who have no status nor citizenship
rights under the Palestinian Authority.  Both the Jewish and
non-Jewish residents of "East Jerusalem" have the right to
Israeli citizenship.

There _is_ a city "Jerusalem" which is the united capital of
the State of Israel.

Any change of this status will be decided either by
negotiation or by a _binding_ U.N. resolution.

The most populous city in the West Bank portion of the
Palestinian Authority is Nablus.

[N.B. I know that I am opening a Pandora's Box by posting
       this message to the timezone list, but I could not
       let this pass without comment.  However, since I respect
       the high level of professionalism of the timezone list
       and do not wish political arguments to overrun the list,
       anyone who wishes to discuss the point with me can do so
       over private e-mail as I will not followup further to the
       entire list.]
_____________________________________
Ephraim Silverberg, CSE System Group,
Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel.
Phone/Fax number:     +972-2-5494521