Last night, three Palestinians living in the United States presented their experiences as three generations of refugees in the States to a small group of students as part of Nakba Commemoration Day 2011, a three-day event.The event was co-sponsored by Brandeis Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace.

The presenters, Dr. Khaid Khalili, Layla Cable and Lisa Hanania '11, spoke about what they considered to be the Palestinian disaster, or Nakba (in Arabic) of 1948, when the modern-day state of Israel was declared.

The event comes on the heels of the Knesset's adoption of two new laws concerning Palestinians in Israel. According to a March 24 Los Angeles Times article, the first law legalizes "admissions committees" in small Israeli towns to determine who may receive citizenship.

According to the same article, the second law imposes fines on Arab towns, local authorities and state-funded organizations that commemorate Nakba Day, which falls close to Israel Independence Day.

The first speaker was Cable, a first-generation refugee who provided a lengthy colonial history of Palestine and the area surrounding it, including details about the original British occupation of the area which is now considered Israel.

"Palestine had always been an open country," she said, comparing the culture of Palestinians to that of Native Americans who had been living in America before colonization.

"There was no yours and mine," she said, explaining the idea of masha'a, or shared, communal land which was a part of Palestinian culture.

"People came and decided what was going to be taken," she continued.

Cable said, "Palestine was won over with violence and aggression," and that Palestinians considered 1948 to be a catastrophe because it resulted in a loss of culture and livelihood for displaced Palestinians.

Khalili, a Muslim from Palestine, was joined by his wife, an American Jewish woman.

"I am a product of Nakba, too," he said, explaining that he lived in the Shatila refugee camp.

"People [in the refugee camps] used to say 'What are you laughing at? You're a Palestinian,'" he said.

"A lot of people supporting Israel 110 percent don't know what Israel is doing in their name."

Khalili, however, did find positive aspects in Israel. "There are a lot of people in Israel who are doing the right thing," he said.

He continued to say later, "We're all in this together. ... People need to stand up because it's the right thing to do."

The last presenter, Hanania, shared the story of her grandfather, who she said was well known in her Palestinian village, which is now a part of Israel.

She described how, walking through the market, he would point out what the town used to be like in order to recreate the image for her.

"The whole image that he was talking about completely did not exist," she said, explaining that as she read more about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, she realized that much of her grandfather's explanation had been "sugar coated."

During the question-and-answer session, BSJP member Noam Lekach '14 asked if the panelists had any advice for how to have a meaningful conversation about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with someone of different beliefs.

JVP co-founder Lev Hirschhorn '11 expanded on this question, stating that he found that many of the posters advertising the event had been taken down and asking why this topic in particular would cause conflict on the campus.

Khalili's wife said that as an American Jew, she was mostly unaware of the conflict in Israel and Palestine and of mistreatment of Palestinians until she met Khalili.

The panel pointed to ignorance as a reason as to why the event may be conflict-inducing.

Khalili asked, "What don't you want to know about this? It's part of history."

Cable concluded the talk by saying, "This is just a tiny segment of what happened," she said, retelling the story of two of her family members who are being forced to demolish the homes that they built near Bethlehem in Israel.

"You want to know stories, there are lots of stories," she said. "I want to wake up and say 'I'm not Palestinian today' and just go out and have some fun, but every time you turn around [there is another] disaster that touches Palestinians.