Ray Bergmann is an anti-racist Jewish Australian writer, human rights activist and peace activist.
Ray Bergmann on his realization of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine (2012) “When I was seventeen and in my final year of high school, my parents were beginning to despair of the views I was expressing on Zionism and on the Jewish community and its leadership. I claimed that the Jewish community was complicit in crimes that, while not of the same magnitude as the Nazi crimes against the Jews, were nonetheless of a quality that felt to me disturbingly similar. These crimes resulted in the apparently permanent displacement of most of the non-Jewish population of the Holy Land, and the persecution and denial of basic human rights of those who remained… I read “The Arabs in Israel, 1948-1966” by Sabri Jurays, Sabri Jurays’ book had a profound effect on me. It introduced me to well-documented evidence about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.” [1, 2].
[1]. Ray Bergmann, “The road to hell is paved with tribal loyalties” in “Beyond Tribal Loyalties. Personal Stories of Jewish Peace Activists”, edited by Avigail Abarbanel (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012) (pp 19, 23).
[2]. Ray Bergmann quoted in Gideon Polya, “Book Review: “Beyond Tribal Loyalties”. Stories of anti-racist Jews”, MWC News, 18 January 2012: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/24184-gideonpolya-beyond-tribal-loyalties.html .