Apple Still Hasn’t Answered Why Its New Operating System Lists Jerusalem Without Israel — but the Israeli Gov't Has, and It Isn't Happy

As TheBlaze first reported on Sunday after a tip from a reader, the time zone setting on Apple’s new iOS 7 operating system shows Jerusalem without a country. This is apparently a repeat pattern for the company, as its last operating system iOS 6 also did not attribute Jerusalem to Israel, for which it is the official capital.

While Apple’s media relations department has not yet responded to two e-mail inquiries from TheBlaze requesting comment, Israel’s foreign ministry is using words like “pernicious,” “pathetic” and “ignorance” to describe the operating system’s feature.

Photo: Getty Images

Paul Hirschson, Deputy Foreign Ministry Spokesman, tells TheBlaze, “We and everyone else knows Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and all the busy work of trying to pretend Jerusalem isn’t Israel’s capital is somewhere between pernicious and pathetic.”

“Let’s hope that for a wonderful company like Apple it’s one of those rare instances of unfortunate ignorance,” he says, adding, “I’d like to see them and everyone else acknowledge that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Quite simple.”

The map feature on the new mobile device operating system does list “Jerusalem, Israel,” but the foreign ministry spokesman says that’s not enough. “It’s the capital of Israel, so it’s not enough to recognize it’s in Israel.”

Hirschson called the map feature’s display of Jerusalem in Israel as “a nice start,” but noted that Jerusalem is not only physically situated in Israel, “it’s the capital of Israel and that should be acknowledged.”

The Palestinians also claim east Jerusalem as their capital. This was the image TheBlaze posted on Sunday showing some of the cities listed:

(Source: ios7 via TheBlaze)

Besides Jerusalem, there were only two other locations that TheBlaze found on the time zone settings which were listed on their own: Taipei, the capital of Taiwan which China claims as part of its territory, and Vatican City.

Meanwhile, TheBlaze’s report has been making the rounds of the Israeli and Jewish American press. In Israel, the Times of Israel and the left-wing Haaretz reported on the story, while in the U.S. the Jewish news agency JTA ran the item as did the Forward. None of those reports include reaction from Apple.

TheBlaze’s Jonathon Seidl contributed to this report.

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