Western European Time (WET, UTC+00:00), defined legally as Greenwich Mean Time in the United Kingdom, is the time zone covering parts of western and northwestern Europe, and includes the following countries and regions:

The nominal span of the time zone is 7.5°E to 7.5°W (0° ± 7.5°), but notably it does not include the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Gibraltar or Spain which use Central European Time (CET), even though these are mostly (France) or completely (the rest) west of 7.5E°. Note also the inclusion of Iceland and eastern Greenland, even though both are west of 15W°

During winter months, the countries above use WET (UK, GMT); however in the summer, most of the above places move one hour ahead to Western European Summer Time (UTC+1), which additionally is known in the UK as British Summer Time (BST) and in Ireland as Irish Standard Time. The only exception is Iceland which maintains UTC+0 all year round.

In Ireland, the Standard Time (Amendment) Act, 1971 legally establishes Greenwich Mean Time (Western European Time) as a winter time period. Ireland reverts to Irish Standard Time during the summer months. This is the reverse of the practice of most countries in the EU, but provides the same end results.

Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the European continent, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the Western part of Europe. Another definition was created during the Cold War (approx. 1945-1991) and used to describe the non-Communist states of Europe that were allied (to an extent for each of them) with and influenced by the United States to some degree. For this purpose the Western European Union (1954–2011; today part of the European Union), a defensive alliance among non-communist European nations during the Cold War, was drafted in 1948. As a result, countries culturally and geographically associated with other European regions that steered clear of Soviet influence during the Cold War are usually included, while western members of the former Eastern Bloc (with the exception of Eastern Germany) are excluded.^{[citation needed]}

Norman Gary Finkelstein (born December 8, 1953) is an American political scientist, activist and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust, an interest motivated by the experiences of his parents who are Jewish Holocaust survivors. He is a graduate of Binghamton University and received his Ph.D in Political Science from Princeton University. He has held faculty positions at Brooklyn College, Rutgers University, Hunter College, New York University, and, most recently, DePaul University, where he was an assistant professor from 2001 to 2007.

In 2007, after a highly publicized row between Finkelstein and a notable opponent of his, Alan Dershowitz, Finkelstein's tenure bid at DePaul was denied. Finkelstein was placed on administrative leave for the 2007–2008 academic year, and on September 5, 2007, he announced his resignation after coming to a settlement with the university on generally undisclosed terms. An official statement from DePaul strongly defended the decision to deny Finkelstein tenure, stated that outside influence played no role in the decision, and praised Finkelstein "as a prolific scholar and outstanding teacher."