The debate on historical responsibility, goes on into other issues such as the use of terminology about the war by the Palestinians. The Palestinian side refer to the war of 1948 as The Catastrophe, the Nakba, as it is cited in Arabic. Nakba in Arabic is a natural catastrophe, like an earthquake, or a tsunami, and it has been used to describe the results of 1948 in a way that does not ascribe responsibility to the Palestinians or to the Arabs at all. And some on the Arab side have criticized this, most notably the Syrian [FOREIGN], who criticized this use of Nakba by saying that merely, merely the use of the expression carries, to a certain degree, an apologetic logic, along with a running away from responsibility. For one upon whom a catastrophe has befallen cannot be held responsible for it. And according to this view, the general Arab view about what the Nakba means, it is Israel that is responsible for what happened. And the Arabs, despite the fact that it was they who launched the war, do not share responsibility with Israel for the creation of its consequences. And Israel is required by the Arab side in the negotiations that are held on the Palestinian question, to admit its responsibility for the refugee problem, without the Arab side admitting any responsibility of it's own. This essentially is asking the Israelis to admit that their country was born in sin. And in exchange for recognition of their existence, the Israelis are expected to concede that they might not have such a right to exist in the first place. Well, the Israelis are very unlikely to do that, but as opposed to this Arab argument, the Israelis would argue that the Arab side bears consider responsibility. May not, maybe not all of the responsibility, but a large share of the responsibility, because of their rejection of partitioning in the first place and their decision to go to war. And what is 1948, for the Palestinians, in terms of their collective identity? 1948 has become the core, collective memory of the Palestinian people. And perhaps the most important facet of a particular historical sense of association that the Palestinians have distinguishing them from other Arab peoples, the collective memory of the defeat of 1948 and its consequences. 1948 in the Arab invasion of Palestine and the Arab defeat, meant for a considerable period after 1948, the Palestinian loss of control of their destiny. The conflict now became what was known for very many years as the Arab-Israeli conflict. The major players in the conflict from the Arab invasion in 1948 are the Arab states, not the Palestinians. And the Palestinians, immediately after 1948, are non players in the conflict that began with the struggle between Jews and Arabs in Palestine. The Armistice Agreements that Israel signed at the end of the war, in the early months of 1949, were only with the Arab states, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria. The Palestinians ceased to be an autonomous player in Middle Eastern politics. In later years they were to return. But in the early years after the war of 1948, they were pushed to the sidelines and the margins of Middle Eastern politics.
