Palestinian Khulood Badawi said Israel and Palestine can live peacefully as one state, while Jewish Israeli Yuval Adam said they would be better off as two. But both students, who spoke at a forum Monday night in Klingenstein Lounge, said the Israeli government should take more responsibility in reducing the violence between the two states.

The Middle Eastern students are touring the United States as part of Faculty For Israeli- Palestinian Peace, an international organization started in the United States. The students, brought to the college by Students for a Just Peace, speak about the century-old conflict between Israeli and Palestinian land and ways to confront the deep-rooted violence between the people of each nationality.

Adam said meeting his Palestinian peers in FFIPP was hard at first because he had grown up with negative feelings toward Palestinians, but in the end, he realized they were working for the same goal. He said the Israeli government is hurting both the Palestinians and the Jews by allowing suppression and violence to reign over Israel.

“It is killing us, literally, on both sides,” Adam said.

Badawi spoke from a minority perspective in Israel. She said the Palestinian people are not recognized as having a nationality. Badawi said though Israel is a Jewish democratic state, and she is proud that it is the only democratic state in the Middle East, it isn’t democratic toward its Palestinian residents.

“[Israel] is Jewish for the Arabs and democratic for the Jewish,” Badawi said.

Badawi said her activism began when her university said she had a free right to education, but she found it came with conditions. Because she refused to serve in the Israeli army, she didn’t receive financial aid or proper housing.

Badawi joined the Association of Arab Students in Israeli Universities at Haifa University, which held protests without proper permission from the school because the students thought the school violated their right to free speech.

“We are waking up from the big lie that they tell us that Jewish and Arabs cannot be together,” Badawi said.

Badawi was expelled from Haifa because the activist students were drawing too much attention to taboo issues, she said.

Badawi said she wants to live peacefully with her Israeli neighbors, but at the same time, she doesn’t want to suppress the Palestinian minority. As an example, Badawi explained why the FFIPP usual panel of three was short one member.

Mohammad Qetairi, a student at Birzeit University in Palestine, could not come to America because Israeli checkpoints prevented him from getting the proper visas.

Adam, leader of The Student Coalition at Tel-Aviv University, said he served his mandatory three years in the military and is proud to have protected his country. But he now said he understands the tension and hostility between the Palestinians and the Jewish Israelis.

“In [the current] atmosphere, it’s hard to be a peace activist,” Adam said.

Senior Haley Singer, one of the organizers of the forum, said she and a fellow student will be traveling to Israel and Palestine with a FFIPP delegation this December.

Singer said she was happy with the turnout of around 50 people and enjoyed the speakers.

“I thought it was interesting that while [the panelists] agree on some issues, you could see that there is a little bit of disagreement,” she said.

Freshman Andrea Levine said she had never heard a Palestinian’s point of view and is interested in the situation in Israel.

“Even what [Adam] said, it’s just very different from what you hear on the news and things that like your family talks about or what our views are,” Levine said. “It’s just good to hear different views and different information you don’t really have the opportunity of getting anywhere else.”