The reason for this odd situation is that I went to the Kotel, the Western Wall of the Temple Mount.
No, it had nothing to do with the timelessness of the prayers that are recited there. It had to do with the fact that the Kotel is closer to the Palestinian Authority than my apartment. Let me explain.
It was on Thursday a week ago, Rosh Hodesh Iyar, that I went to the Kotel. (The reason, briefly, was to observe and to lend support to the efforts of Women of the Wall, "WOW". I'll say more about WOW in another blogpost.)
As I was preparing to leave the Kotel, I looked at my iPhone and discovered that I had somehow gained an hour. I had been at the Kotel for well over an hour. I expected it to be around 8:30 am. Yet, according to my iPhone, it was only 7:30 am! The times for all of my appointments had also, somehow, shifted. I was puzzled, but too busy to do anything about it. When I got back to my apartment, I took another look at my iPhone. Miraculously, everything had returned to normal.
What was going on?
The answer apparently has to do with Israel, the Palestinians, and Apple.
My iPhone, which is now serves as my watch and my calendar, automatically sets its internal clock according to the local governmental authority. Most of the time, that means Israel. After all, that's where I'm living right now.
But sometimes, when I go close to the borders of the Palestinian Authority, something strange happens.
(The dotted line on the map above indicates the pre-1967 "Green Line," which is not identical to the borders of the Palestinian Authority.)
My phone behaves as if the Palestinian Authority hasn't yet shifted onto daylight saving time--even though it has. True, the Authority did not shift its clock at precisely the same time that the Israelis did, but its clock is now officially identical to that of Israel. But Apple apparently doesn't know that! Hence, it synchronizes my clock with what it thinks is the correct time in Ramallah or Hebron: namely, one hour earlier than in Israel. The time on my iphone clock can shift back and forth several times during the day, depending on where in Jerusalem I happen to be.
Is this a metaphor? Do any of us know what time it is, anyway, in this region?
The Palestinians -- or, at least, some of them -- act sometimes as though time is on their side -- which, given the demography, may seem a reasonable perspective. If present trends continue, the number of Arabs living west of the Jordan River will continue to increase. Soon, it will exceed the number of Jews. From the perspective of the Palestinians, why not wait until that demographic shift has occured? Then, they could insist on becoming citizens of a single, unified state -- which would ultimately be Palestinian in character. How could that right be denied them? Why bother to return to the negotiating table until that happens? (Other Palestinians, who seek to create an independent Palestinian state separate from Israel, are less sanguine, as they witness the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.)
On the other side, many Israelis also believe that time is on their side. They have lost hope in achieving peace with the Palestinians. They don't believe that the Palestinians will ever be statisfied with anything less than the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state. They would rather focus on improving Israel's position on the ground by building new settlements and strengthening existing ones, and put off making concessions. To them, this path, even though it may mean enduring at least a low level of tension and even sporadic eruptions of violence, is preferable to seeking, vainly, to eliminate the tension altogether.
(Other Israelis realize that it is likely that, eventually, Israel will be forced to choose (a) to exercise political, military and economic control over a hostile population in excess of its own; (b) to grant citizenship to all Palestinians and pursue the "one state solution"; or (c) to withdraw from much of the West Bank in order to remain a democratic, Jewish state. Those who see such a choice as inevitable, as only a "matter of time," consider option (c) the only tenable and tolerable one, and therefore urge Israel to negotiate now, so as to carry out that transition as smoothly and peacefully as possible. But that view is a minority one here.)
Hence, each side generally publicly acts as though time is on its side.
But is it?
