At the Riyadh Arab-China summit on Friday, the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas demanded that the UK and the U.S. apologize for the Balfour Declaration, and that Israel apologize for the nakba (i.e., the “catastrophe” that befell Palestinian Arabs in 1948). Of a piece with this rhetorical focus on past grievances was the UN General Assembly’s recent vote to mark May 15 as “Nakba Day.” Adi Schwartz comments:

Contrary to popular belief in the West (and in certain circles in Israel), Nakba Day was not intended to mark the alleged humanitarian disaster that befell the Palestinian people in the 1948 war. They do not mourn the dead, the wounded, or the exiled, but the very establishment of the Jewish state. They mourn Jews gaining independence rather than the human cost of the war.

The term nakba was coined by the Syrian Arab intellectual Constantin Zureiq in a book he wrote in the summer of 1948 titled “The Meaning of Disaster.” Analyzing the Arab response to their failure to prevent the establishment of Israel, he wrote, “Seven Arab states declare war on Zionism in Palestine, stop impotent before it, and turn on their heels.”

The thought that 600,000 Jews managed to defeat 60 million Muslim Arabs at the time was—and still is—unimaginable to the Arabs. This is the greatest humiliation, the source of the frustration, rage, and violence directed toward the state of Israel. This is the true meaning of “nakba,” the disaster of the Jews’ success to declare a state despite all the efforts by the Arabs to prevent them from doing so.

The fact that Palestinians commemorate Nakba Day on May 15 is a clear indication of this. If the occasion was truly meant to remember the casualties among Palestinians, they could have a day that had more meaning loss-wise, such as the fighting in the Deir Yassin village or the day when Arab Haifa fell to the Jews. These events had a great impact on the course of the war, and they reflect a real Palestinian loss. But on May 15, nothing happened but the very declaration of Israel’s independence.

In 2003, the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, spooked by the American display of might in Iraq, decided to destroy or surrender his entire nuclear program. Informed observers have suggested that the deal he made with the U.S. should serve as a model for any agreement with Iran. Robert Joseph provides some useful background:

Gaddafi had convinced himself that Libya would be next on the U.S. target list after Iraq. There was no reason or need to threaten Libya with bombing as Gaddafi was quick to tell almost every visitor that he did not want to be Saddam Hussein. The images of Saddam being pulled from his spider hole . . . played on his mind.

President Bush’s goal was to have Libya serve as an alternative model to Iraq. Instead of war, proliferators would give up their nuclear programs in exchange for relief from economic and political sanctions.

Any outcome that permits Iran to enrich uranium at any level will fail the one standard that President Trump has established: Iran will not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. Limiting enrichment even to low levels will allow Iran to break out of the agreement at any time, no matter what the agreement says.

Iran is not a normal government that observes the rules of international behavior or fair “dealmaking.” This is a regime that relies on regional terror and brutal repression of its citizens to stay in power. It has a long history of using negotiations to expand its nuclear program. Its negotiating tactics are clear: extend the negotiations as long as possible and meet any concession with more demands.