HAIFA, Israel — Seventy years ago, the world changed around my family. The establishment of the state of Israel represented self-determination for Jews, but a catastrophe — “nakba” in Arabic — for Palestinians. In the area around the Mediterranean city of Haifa, where my family has lived for six generations, only 2,000 Palestinians of a population of 70,000 remained. My grandparents, A’bdel-Hai and A’dla, were among them. Their neighbors were expelled and dispossessed, and never allowed to return.

More than 400 Palestinian communities were destroyed entirely — each one carried the memories and milestones of the families who called it home. My grandparents and all those Palestinian Arabs who remained and became citizens of the state of Israel were placed under military rule in Israel until 1966.

This is a sorrowful and important part of my family’s story, and of Palestinian history. It should be recognized and mourned. But in 2011, Israel passed a law declaring that any institution that receives public funds can be financially penalized if it mourns the Nakba on the same day as Independence Day, which Israel celebrates on Thursday.

This law is intended to erase the painful truth of the Nakba, which is an inseparable part of the story of the founding of the state of Israel. It is also a point of proof that the Nakba — the erasure of Palestinians, along with our history, language and stories — is not a single historical event. It is a continuing phenomenon.