Avi Yemini, 2023 Rebel News Viewer’s Choice Award winner, recounts his pandemic journalism in Australia under "Dictator Dan," clashing with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla at Davos over $2.3B fines and vaccine claims. His NZ book tour faced Jacinda Ardern’s office interference via Interpol leaks, culminating in a defiant haka performance after Antifa threats. Post-October 7, Yemini risked reporting near Gaza with soldiers, noting global media’s swift shift against Israel despite unified Israeli resolve. Both credit viewer support over platform demonetization, vowing to expose narratives amid rising instability like Yemen’s Houthis and Biden-era tensions. [Automatically generated summary]
Tonight, a heart to heart with the winner of the Rebel News Viewers Choice Awards for our top reporter.
Shame on you, you censorious thug.
Well, every year we have what we call the Rebbe Awards at Rebel News.
It's sort of an internal prize that we give people, a little statuette.
Most of the prizes are actually for behind-the-scenes employees who sometimes don't get the credit that our on-screen stars do.
It's something we do every year at our Christmas party, and it's a little bit of fun, and there is some anticipation.
But by far, the most prestigious Rebbe Award is not chosen by me or other managers, but rather chosen by you at our Viewers' Choice Awards.
Thousands of people vote.
And I have to tell you, this year it was very close.
There were some contenders.
We announced the six finalists at the Christmas party.
Some of the contenders were just about 1% away from each other.
But I have to say, this year's winner, the first place winner, had a significant margin in his lead.
Not surprising in that he has been a multi-Rebbe award winner.
You probably know who I'm talking about, and he's our guest for our feature interview today.
I'm talking about Abi Yamini, our chief Australian correspondent, who joins us now from Melbourne.
Avi, great to see you again.
How are you doing, Ezra?
Thanks for having me.
Well, it's a pleasure.
Now, some of the Canadians say, well, hey, everyone in Australia is voting for Avi.
He has a whole country to himself.
Whereas the Canadians, there's half a dozen Canadians dividing up the Canadian vote.
But I happen to know for a fact that you have fans around the world, not just in Australia, but in the UK, Canada, and America.
And even in Israel, for example, you just came back from a couple of weeks doing journalism at the border between southern Israel and Gaza.
So I think the excuse from Canadians, oh, he has the whole country, Australia, rooting for him.
I think that might be a tiny bit of sourges, but it's all good sport.
I think everyone here is rooting for you.
And you've done some great journalism in 2023.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
Look, I don't blame him.
Maybe it is.
Maybe I do have that leg up.
I reckon I deserve it because we also, on the flip side of it, we operate the whole Rebel here on a much smaller team.
Either way, some of the guys that I was up against that I actually got to meet this year just weeks before the war broke out in Israel on that amazing tour that we did.
You know, these are real contenders and these are people that I've looked up to even before I worked at Rebel.
So I'm humbled by however I won or everybody that voted for me.
We're just joking around and we love your work.
During the lockdowns, it was a real window on Australia.
And that's where I think you really started to build an enormous international following because of course Australians wanted to hear what was happening in their own country.
And you were really, you and Rukshan Fernando and other citizen journalists.
It was basically the TUIAs covering the harshest lockdown in Australia by a politician who was soon nicknamed Dictator Dan.
But that story, your reports were viewed around the world because people couldn't believe it was happening in Australia, a country that everyone around the world thought was pretty easygoing and pretty friendly and pretty positive.
I want to look back, not since all your work since the pandemic, but I want to just take a minute to talk about 2023 because it was an amazing year starting in January 2023, where you and I and a handful of other journalists actually went to the World Economic Forum together.
Now, you had been before.
It was my first trip.
It was brutally cold.
We were trudging around this ski town in the Swiss Alps called Davos.
But it really was exhilarating because you were playing cat and mouse with these V VIPs, not just VIPs, but very, very important people who didn't have entourages.
I mean, maybe they had one assistant next to them, didn't have like a swarm of bodyguards.
Tell me a little bit about your experience in Davos because we're headed back there in just a few weeks.
Set the scene, and then I'll throw to what I think is one of my career highlights of my life is when you and I had a joint scrum, a walking scrum of Albert Burla, the CEO of Pfizer.
But set the table for our viewers.
I think most of our viewers have seen it, but I just want to talk a bit about Davos.
You've been a couple of times.
This will be your third journey.
How would you describe going to that World Economic Forum as an outsider, as a citizen journalist on the outside?
Yeah, look, firstly, I think that it's just the perfect way to start the year in journalism, especially for rebels, because you get to come face to face with some of the most agenda-setting, powerful people, unelected, often, usually unelected, powerful people on the planet.
And as you say, they don't have the entourages.
It's their safe space.
I was a bit surprised last year when we went, Ezra, that we even got anything because I thought surely after the first time we'd traveled to Davos, that they would change their, you know, their security protocols and that.
And the only change that we learned that they implemented was that they'd encouraged guests to, if you remember that, you know, they wear their name tags that are all color coded because it's kind of a class system to show who's important and who's just staff and who's service.
So they were telling people to, on the official invitations or when you got your passes, to just cover them up when you leave the closed area and come out to, you know, where the rest of us peasants are on the main strip on the street where they want to hang out.
But that was the only change they made.
The thing that they obviously didn't, you know, keep in mind, you think about when they made, when they asked people to do that is that these people are so superficial and everybody that is, you know, anyone important, they want people to know who they are.
Police Interactions Matter00:04:00
They want to know, they want people to know how important they are.
So nobody abided by that.
And I personally saw the instruction that they were giving the guests to do.
So I'm excited to go back again.
I don't know what to expect this time.
And obviously the news cycle is different and some of the old issues are still there, but we've got new issues this year.
I question whether there's going to be a Ukraine, a Ukraine tent or pop-up there this time.
The last two times there were and they were kind of the centerpieces of these of the WEF.
But it seems like the world is starting to forget Ukraine.
So I don't know.
I'm looking forward, though, to kicking off 2024 in what I believe is going to become our rebel tradition.
Well, it certainly seems to have started.
Yeah.
Well, you know, there were a few key moments for me.
Again, it was my first time last year.
And I remember when the police pulled us over, and I'm used to the police giving us a bit of a hassle.
And I know you are too.
You've actually been arrested several times.
We had to sue the police to get them to back off you.
So you and I, I mean, you more than me are used to police being a little bit rough with the civil liberties.
But it's my observation based on two interactions I had there that Swiss police are actually very gentle, have a very light touch.
You and I, I mean, the way we scrummed Albert Boorla, if we were scrumming dictator Dan in Melbourne or scrumming Justin Trudeau like that in Canada, the bodyguards would be there smashing us.
The Swiss police did not get involved.
As long as we didn't touch the guy or threaten the guy, they absolutely had no interest in getting involved in our journalism.
And when they pulled us over in our car once, I remember saying to the cop, you know, freedom of the press, and they said, you're right, keep on moving.
I actually had a deeper respect for Swiss, for Switzerland and their commitment to civil liberties.
I have to say, Avi, I found it superior than either Australia or Canada.
And that's what makes me sad as a Canadian.
Yeah, it was interesting because at first, when even the Swiss police, when they walk up to you or stop you in the car and tell you you can't film, as soon as you push back, what I've been used to in Australia or in other parts of the world when I've generally gone to report is as soon as you question their authority, they kind of step up even if they're wrong and they often are,
but they'll come up and they kind of go on this power trip.
Whereas the Swiss police were the exact opposite.
As soon as you question the legality around them telling you to turn off the cameras or filming or whatever, they went more to an emotional position.
They go, yeah, it's your right, but, you know, we don't really want to be on camera, which makes me think, all right, well, if you're not telling me, if you're not unlawfully telling me I have to stop, I will, as a human, be more compliant if there is no real journalistic reason for my cameras to be rolling.
Often we roll our cameras through these, you know, checkpoints or any interaction with police just in case they cross a lot.
And I did grow to respect the Swiss police just like you.
And I saw, I witnessed your interactions with them this time.
And we were prepared.
If you remember, as we do often, you know, we had a lawyer ready to go to help us out if something happened, if they did cross those lines, but they absolutely didn't.
Yeah.
Well, here, let's roll the whole interaction of you and me and two of our cameramen.
Like the timing was perfect.
We went there.
I think I'm trying to remember how many folks we had, but you and I were there with our microphones.
We had two cameramen and we had, it was just, you know, it was like we were waiting.
We didn't know who we were waiting for.
But when he showed up, let's roll the walking scrum that you and I had with Albert Burla.
Why Keep It Secret?00:07:50
You know, people still stop me on the street when they don't stop me on the street when I'm talking to them and say, hey, you're the Burla guy.
I'm not sure if you get that too.
Here, let's take a look at that video.
Mr. Boorla, can I ask you, when did you know that the vaccines didn't stop transmission?
How long did you know that without saying it publicly?
Thank you very much.
I'm sorry.
I answered that question.
I mean, we now know that the vaccines didn't stop transmission, but why did you keep it secret?
You said it was 100% effective, then 90%, then 80%, then 70%.
But we now know that the vaccines do not stop transmission.
Why did you keep that secret?
Have a nice day.
I won't have a nice day until I know the answer.
Why did you keep it a secret that your vaccine did not stop transmission?
Is it time to apologize to the world, sir?
To give refunds back to the countries that poured all their money into your vaccine that doesn't work, your ineffective vaccine?
Yeah, you have a little bit of round.
Are you not ashamed of what you've done in the last couple of years?
Do you have any apologies to the public, sir?
Are you proud of it?
You've made millions on the backs of people's entire livelihoods.
How does that feel to walk the streets as a millionaire on the backs of the regular person at home in Australia, in England, in Canada?
What do you think about on your yacht, sir?
What do you think about on your private jet?
Are you worried about product liability?
Are you worried about myocarditis?
What about the sudden deaths?
What do you have to say about young men dropping dead of heart attacks every day?
Why won't you answer these basic questions?
No apologies, sir.
Do you think you should be charged criminally for some of the criminal behavior you've obviously been a part of?
How much money have you personally made off the vaccine?
How many boosters do you think it'll take for you to be happy enough with your earnings?
Nothing?
Who did you meet with here in secret?
Will you disclose who you met with?
Who did you pay commissions to?
In the past, Pfizer has paid $2.3 billion in fines for deceptive marketing.
Have you engaged in that same conduct again?
Are you under investigation like you were before for your deceptive marketing, sir?
If any other product in the world doesn't work as promised, you get a refund.
Should you not refund to countries that laid out billions for your ineffective vaccine?
Are you used to only sympathetic media, so you don't know how to answer any questions?
Is that it?
Please, my pops.
Shame on you, sir.
Shame on you.
You know, the thing is, Avi, and I've said this, I've thought about this a hundred times since that video, which, by the way, on Twitter alone, I think has 40 million views, if my math is right.
None of the questions you and I posed to him were novel.
Like, those questions are being asked by other people, bigger people than us.
Surely he's heard of them.
Surely he's asked about, well, when did you know that it didn't stop infection?
When did you know its efficacy?
Like our questions were not, we were not the first people in the world.
He had answers for sure.
He might have even had good answers.
But his disdain and disrespect for journalists who weren't official journalists, who were skeptical journalists, was so great that he simply refused to talk to us.
He could have done fine.
He could have just blah, blah, blah, duck speaked his way through it.
Why do you think he refused?
Do you think that was his media training?
Do you think he just had disrespect for citizen journalists?
Why didn't he answer?
I think his silence looked awful.
He could have answered us.
I don't know if he had good answers, to be fair.
I don't know if he was prepared.
I don't even know if he's even heard those questions before because they do live in a bubble.
Like many of those people that go to attend the WEF, they're protected, like you say, by the fact that, you know, the official journalists, which are part of the World Economic Forum, which go there to give talks and take part in whatever it is, to be a part of that club.
So I don't know if he's ever gone outside his bubble.
He seemed genuinely shocked to me that he was being, you know, questioned like that in a place that he would have considered as a safe space, as a place that he never imagined he would be confronted by tough questions.
Like you say, they're not like it's hard to call them tough questions because it's what the average person, you know, around the globe that was essentially forced to take his drug.
It's what most people were asking in that period of time or in the lead up to that.
But I don't know if he had an answer.
I don't know if it, or he just didn't think it's important to answer us because he didn't imagine at the time how far and wide that would go.
Because I think that was still early in Elon Musk's days on Twitter.
So I think he thought that they still had control over the narrative in the fact that we couldn't run it on mainstream platforms like YouTube and Facebook.
And we didn't.
We relied on Rumble and Twitter, and it still reached everywhere.
And I do get stopped by people, you know, at different events going, oh, wow, you were that guy that confronted Buller, the CEO of Pfizer.
And good on you for asking the questions that we had.
And, you know, even me, I know, because even I was surprised how much time we got with him in that interaction.
I don't know if you remember Ezra, how he, you know, at one point he was working so hard to run away from us that he ended up trapping himself in the corner of a fence.
I remember.
And it was just all so wild and bizarre that he just was so unprepared because let's say he didn't want to answer and he he was prepared not to answer.
I don't think he would have trapped himself.
I think he would have just walked back into the behind the that police line where we couldn't have access to, but he didn't do that.
And I'm interested to see what this year brings and if people like him are going to, you know, how they're going to manage it.
I dare say that they're so arrogant and they still live inside that bubble whilst we've had an impact there and we've had an impact on the on the you know on the conversation on the discussions around it.
I don't know if we've broken their bubble in which they think they're above having to answer the rest of the world.
Yeah.
You know, you said two things that I never thought of, but I agree with them both.
You said he was probably surprised that we were there in his safe space.
I mean, we were surprised to see him.
Why wouldn't he be surprised to encounter us?
And second, I think you're exactly right.
We look at that as an exciting moment in part because it had 40 million views.
And we certainly didn't know that.
And he obviously didn't know that.
Big News Revealed00:11:34
That was a bit of sometimes half of journalism is just being there, being at the right place at the right time.
And I remember you and I were waiting at great length for some of these folks.
Well, Davos was a huge success for us.
And you had some other great journalistic moments there.
I won't show them all now, but we did set up a special website for our trip, w efreports.com.
We're going to use that same website for our next trip.
So I encourage folks, I had some great sort of hidden microphone, hidden camera moments.
And I had a walking scrum with Greta Tunberg, which was very fruitless.
But you can find all those at wfreports.com.
But I want to talk about a couple of other exciting moments you had.
Now, you cover Australia very well, but I want to talk about two other adventures you went on.
The first one was to New Zealand.
And as a North American, I think, well, Australia and New Zealand, they're right next to each other.
No way.
That is hours and hours of flying.
It just looks like they're close because they're the only things.
I mean, there's teeny little Pacific Islands.
But with your autobiography, Rebel from the Start, we went to New Zealand for the book tour because New Zealand had, under Jacinda Ardern, tried to block you from entering the country.
And they succeeded at first.
Why don't you give our viewers a bit of a backstory?
We'll remind people and we'll throw to a clip.
I'll let you do that.
New Zealand tried to block you, but we got the last laugh.
Go ahead, tell the story.
Yes, it was back in, what are we now, 2020?
I think it was end of 2022, if I'm not mistaken, where there was one of the final, you know, big anti-lockdown protests that were happening, freedom protests.
And I was going there with Rookshan to actually cover this event.
And the funny thing is it ended up being a very non, you know, it was a bit of a fizzle.
It was people had already started to lose interest in the cause because they were getting back their freedoms or whatever it was.
But.
But as I arrived at the airport, the Qantas staff were a bit puzzled because they received a notification that they'd never received before from someone with an Australian passport is that my passport was flagged.
And I need to speak to the New Zealand customs immigration.
Immigration comes on the phone and basically tells me that you're being banned because of, I can't remember the, they were saying that I had an under the character assessment that they're doing over the phone, which had all stemmed from the days before somebody had, Chantelle Baker, which was one of the people we were going to go interview, had announced on her telegram that we were coming,
which set off the mainstream media machine in running hit pieces and within the hit pieces, asking the government as to why they are not banning us, banning me on character grounds.
And, you know, I could tell straight away what had happened, but we didn't have the proof yet.
And over the next few months, as we'd gone, as we, you know, as we do, every time, as soon as somebody oversteps the line, our supporters, you know, the viewers watching this now, who are grateful every time because they're always there to back us in these moments.
But they came on board and we, you know, we hired the lawyer, we hired immigration agents.
In fact, we hired them as soon as those hit pieces came out.
And we started the process in applying for the actual visa and getting this decision overturned.
Now, at the time, I had no idea what the book was.
We didn't even know when the book was, I was working on the book, but it wasn't no idea as to when I was going to be granted and when the book would be finished.
In the meantime, we managed to receive all their internal communications, firstly between, what do they call the international police, Interpol, plus the internal communications just between immigration there, plus the communications between the ministry and I think we also did an access requirement because some bureaucrats on the other side actually leaked it to you, right?
Yeah, first it was a police from the from Interpol, a police officer had leaked those first communications, which gave us kind of the footing onto what to do freedom of information, because sometimes you're going to be quite specific to know what you're looking for so they can't hide.
And yeah, but it was somebody going, this is complete nonsense.
Somebody in law enforcement saying they're banning you.
It was all politically motivated and it was proven it was politically motivated by the internal communications, which at that point it became quite clear that they were never going to go to court because you've got to remember Jacinda Ardern herself lied at a press conference saying that she had nothing to do with that and she only ever heard about it from the media, which from the internal communication became quite clear that her office was very much involved and it was the ministers that were pushing it.
Long story short, it was, I guess, divine providence that as I'd finished the book, my visa had come through because we knew they were not going to actually go to court.
They were going to make us jump through every single hoop and drag it out as far as they could.
And they did.
They made me, you know, to the end, run a police, a federal police check in Australia, which they already had directly from the police because we had in the communications, but it was their legal right to ask it.
And it took about three months just to get that, to get an appointment and get all that done.
It came out just as my book had come.
And I thought, you know, Ezra, I grew up ultra-Orthodox.
I'm not a big man of faith.
I love my heritage and my culture.
I'm proud about where I came from.
But I thought, my goodness, right as I finished the book, my visa is granted.
It's like somebody is telling me upstairs that the only place that you need to launch this book to get to kick it off has to be the censorship capital, you know, of at least the Western world, where they literally banned a journalist they didn't like for political reasons.
And so we did, we launched the book in New Zealand.
And of course, Antifa tried to shut us down.
But from, you know, one of the things that we do really well, I think, at Rebel News is we take negatives and we turn it into a positive.
We turn it into a campaign and then we turn it into a win.
Whilst it looks like we're down at first, you know, like the ban, but we overturned it.
We showed them for what they were.
And then on top of it, when we organized the events in New Zealand, we, well, firstly, we did the first one in Auckland at the church at Destiny's Church.
I didn't know much about these guys, except for I seen their names pop up during the anti-lockdown protests.
They were, you know, they were there at the front.
You know, the mainstream media hated them.
And I just knew that there was no way they were going to pull their venue.
And we were right.
They were fantastic.
And the first night was amazing.
You were there, Ezra.
And then, of course, the second location, I didn't realize that they had locations all around the country.
In fact, I didn't know much about him.
I just knew it was safe in Auckland.
And as you saw, remember, in the middle of the night, right as we were supposed to, we were supposed to have the next event in, where was it, Ezra?
Was it Christ Williams in Christ?
No, Wellington, in the capital, sorry.
And we did it specifically there because that's, you know, that was the that was where the protest was that I was supposed to cover.
And the Anglican church pulled out on us on that day early, you know, early, early in the morning.
And we crawled, we called Brian Tamaki, who'd we'd formed a relationship from realizing what it was he had and realizing that this guy has been demonized for years and is an evangelical Christian.
And I actually love his style.
I don't, you don't necessarily have to believe, I'm not a man of particular faith.
I just respect everybody's right to believe in what they what they wish as long as they're not imposing it on me.
And I think he does an amazing job and he does so much good work that, you know, we called him straight away.
And without even thinking, he said, don't worry, we've got a church there and opened his doors there in Wellington as well, which was an absolute success.
And I don't think I could have planned it better.
It was incredible.
I really got to know a little bit about the Maori people.
Brian Tamaki is the leader of the Maori in so many ways as a religious leader.
I think he's a cultural leader.
He's a youth leader.
He's a political leader.
I want to show just some clips of this because it wasn't just the Avi's book launch.
was how the Maori protected us from Antifa, including, really very exciting, doing what's called a haka.
That's sort of the war dance, like that dramatic dance with Avi.
Let me show you some clips of that trip because it was, I don't know, it was a defeat for cancel culture.
It was a success for Freedom of Speech.
And both Jacinda Arjern and her national censorship and Antifa and their attempts to cancel the events both failed.
And that's a really big win.
Here, let me just show you some of that amazing and momentous time in New Zealand.
North Korea, I am finally here in Auckland, even though the Communist Party tried their very best to stop me with the cover of their state board and paid for mainstream media.
Thank you to the New Zealand Herald for promoting my book.
Big news, guys, that we need you to share everywhere.
Overnight, in middle of the night, we received an email that the venue in Wellington has pulled our event due to sustained threats of violence against is the same New Zealand Herald that keeps telling us Chantel is not a reliable source.
Suddenly, she was so reliable that her rumor was enough to run a hip piece on me demanding the government banned.
all right so we talked about the world economic forum and i can't believe we're going to be back there in less than a month Talked about your book tour, including meeting the Maori of New Zealand and becoming friends with them.
I was so surprised by the things I learned.
And you ended the year strong by doing something that was actually dangerous.
Driving into Conflict Zones00:12:32
We have never sent anyone to a war zone before.
And the reason for that is, well, I mean, certainly no one else in the company other than you has served in the military.
We're not ready for it.
It's a dangerous thing.
I mean, we like taking political risks, but we've just never been in a position to send.
For example, we contemplated sending someone to Ukraine, but we quickly realized that we were not equipped for that and it was too dangerous and we didn't want our people hurt.
But you went to Israel and literally stood at the border between southern Israel and Gaza.
And you managed to secure a bulletproof vest and helmet for you and your cameraman, videographer Benji Chung.
Give us a minute on that.
And then I want to show a couple of clips.
The moment you arrive, an attack drone overhead and then rockets coming in.
But first, set the story up a bit.
I mean, you just gotten home from your book tour and you're just catching up with the family and after being on the road for a while.
And then the most atrocious anti-Semitic pogrom since the Holocaust happens and war is about to start.
And you knew you had to go.
Tell us about that.
Yeah, that's right, Ezra.
So we had been traveling.
I think that was right after we came back from New Zealand and before that or after that, there was the Israel tour that we did.
So there'd been a fair bit of traveling and we're just starting to settle back in and we were actually packing our house, starting to prepare for an upcoming move.
And yeah, it was Sunday morning.
Like most of the world, we witnessed an absolute horror.
In fact, it was on X where you started seeing the videos coming out of Israel.
And I was calling my siblings there who had no idea because it was a weekend there.
It was Simchatora.
It was a Jewish holiday.
So people were waking up and they didn't.
We knew here before, because it was about 6:30, 6:45 a.m. there.
And people hadn't really got their head around what was unfolding there.
And in fact, when I was there, I was talking to my brother-in-law who was saying they were in synagogue at midday and they still didn't know that war had essentially been declared on Israel and specifically civilians of Israel.
But what I knew just watching it unfold and we were talking early on, you and I, Ezra, because on a personal level, I really didn't want to go.
I just got back home and we had a plan of the next two months.
But I realized really early on in the first day or so that whilst the world was being sympathetic, because there was no way you could look at Hamas's, you know, GoPro footage or the videos or videos from victims that were being filmed and quickly uploaded, there was no way that there was no way to twist it at that time.
So everybody was being sympathetic.
And it did make my skin crawl at points where they were lighting up buildings with Israeli flags.
Not because I thought it's a nice gesture, but I knew that it was going to be used by detractors of Israel and anti-Semites and Jew haters from all sides, as we've seen, to say, ah, you see, people are over-sympathetic to the Jews.
And I knew that the narrative within a few days, I actually thought a couple of weeks, but a few days would change and Israel would soon be demonized for fighting back because everybody, you know, feels bad for the Jews after the attacks, after the Holocaust, after that atrocious attack, that massacre on October 7th.
So I knew the narrative was going to change.
And as much as I personally didn't want to, I knew I had to go there.
And we chatted about it and got permission from my brave wife.
And Benji was, if you're going, I'm going.
And we went there.
And, you know, I landed in Israel.
It was the, I'm really happy I did because I think that, and that's what I said to myself.
And I think I may have said to you on the phone, is this one of the most historic moments, you know, for me?
This is, this is history happening in front of us in a moment that will be the September 11 of Israel.
And also so many knock-on effects of what this means for the world, you know, the Middle East, but probably broader than that.
And, you know, we landed in Israel and I couldn't believe it.
It was Israel that I didn't recognize.
There was nobody outside.
Everybody was locking their homes.
The only people outside were military personnel, volunteers, and us.
And we were kind of driving these roads and heading to the, as close as we can.
I'll tell you something that happened that never even made the cut because we had, I think we had a 360 running at the time, but we were trying to see how close to Gaza we could actually get safely, as close as we could get so we could see what was kind of unfolding.
This was like the first night, Ezra.
And we're driving down this one road that leads to Gaza and it was pitch black.
And we're driving in the Tesla because at the time, Elon Musk had announced free charging for Israel.
So we thought, yeah, for Teslas.
So I thought that's an amazing thing, you know, also support the idea of people that are willing to help and everything that Ilon Musa is out.
So we took this Tesla, but I didn't really know 100% how to operate this Tesla.
I don't know if I've told you this story, Ezra.
We're driving down this pitch black road and we're starting to think we're getting a bit closer than I think.
You know, we're already hundreds of meters from Gaza.
And I'm thinking, surely we can't just drive into Gaza.
Like, this is a bit ridiculous.
And then out of the darkness, there's the floodlights on us, like blinding, screaming, guns drawn at us.
And they're telling us to turn off the headlights.
And I didn't know how to turn off the headlights, Ezra, because it's a Tesla.
And I'm telling the soldiers, it's a bloody Tesla.
I don't know how to do it.
We're friendly.
It's okay.
We're journalists.
And they came to the window, but we're laughing about it now.
I've got to say that my heart was pumping at the time.
But it was a kind of pressure.
And it was so chaotic at the time.
Everybody was nervous, including every soldier because only where that actually happened, within probably 100 meters of that, 24 hours later, they actually found terrorists hiding from the October 7 attack.
So this is within that week.
So, you know, I understood why they were on edge and we had a good chat after and they had a bit of a laugh at me, you know, when we talked about my military service and they, you know, that was something that actually got me a little bit of access just because they had, you know, the guys there had the respect for where I served.
I'd actually served in Far Gaza, Far Gaza, which was destroyed, one of the Kibutzim and where they massacred all the soldiers.
That was actually my base during my active service.
That was where I was deployed for most of my service.
So I knew it quite well.
And, you know, they turned us around and told us, don't do that again.
You're going to get yourself.
And we learned.
We learned quite quickly and we navigated around what was happening on the ground.
Like I said in the beginning, it was really chaotic.
The fact that we were able to get so close, even on the day, the first day on the ground where a drone was dropping munitions close to us and then chasing us was incredible because a few days later, no journalists were able to get that close because it was an active war zone.
It was just, that was where the fighting was happening.
And I think it was just so important to capture as the world's media was helping shift the narrative to demonize Israel.
I think it was just so important for us to be on the ground there to actually capture what was happening in real time while not forgetting the reason why Israel had to go in and also talking to everyday Israelis because something that we saw over the last few years in Israel was this divide, this division in Israel, this political division that we'd never seen, mass protests.
And, you know, even within my own family, my mother was going to protest on one side and my brother was going to protest, counter protest on the other side.
That's how divided Israel actually was.
And what I noticed in Israel is how people, this was a wake-up call.
They realized they got, you know, they got a bit complacent and comfortable in the strength of the army.
And they realized that that complacency flipped overnight.
The reality changed and people did not know that this massive plan and all those questions, there's still many questions that have to be answered.
But people realize that we actually need to come back together as Israelis, no matter what we think about the government, because it's okay to hate the government, but to actually stand and fight for the existence of the country.
So everybody across the board, almost every single person we spoke to was like, the army has to go in.
We have to get rid of Hamas.
We have to ensure this never happens.
And then we can hold those. responsible in whichever way accountable, whether it comes to the prime minister or the head of the army, whatever it is, they all need to be held accountable.
We need to get to the bottom of how this happened.
And it was just an eye-opening trip that I wish I didn't have to do, but I'm glad I did.
Yeah.
Well, we're glad you did also.
And we're glad you and Benji came back safe and sound.
I want to show three clips.
First of when you arrived, I think it was in steroid.
Second, when you had to rush into a bomb shelter during the day.
And the third is when you and I were talking live and rockets started to be launched.
I want to show those clips back to back.
It was very exciting and a little bit dangerous too.
Take a look.
Whoa, Missile smoke.
That looks like something that just got hit.
We are the ones that are...
There's a drone.
Shhh!
There's a drone.
There's a drone, there's a drone.
Oh, it's not.
T'n'asoo la horrid o'to, eshle meesho neshek tira bo!
I see there's rockets flying behind him.
Go ahead.
Switch over to Avi immediately.
I just saw him on the other screen.
Rockets fly by.
Avi, can you hear me?
Yes, I can hear you.
And I'm not sure if you guys caught that on all the viewers, but we are right here.
And it is definitely picking up.
Moments ago, we actually had to run for shelter because there's drones, Hamas drones that came here.
And as we've experienced, they're actually carrying munitions, which they dropped right next to us at one of the checkpoints in the early days of this conflict.
So things are certainly heating up on this border, Ezra, with the expected incursion into Gaza in just a matter of hours.
All our sources are telling us that it is happening today.
And in fact, Hamas, just moments ago, released two American hostages, which most people believe here.
That is, it's a stalling tactic, hoping the IDF doesn't actually go in tonight.
All of them believe that that's not going to work, Ezra.
Well, Avi, it's been an amazing year.
You started in Davos.
You traveled around Australia.
We went to New Zealand.
You went to London for your book launch as well.
And of course, at the Gaza war with Israel.
Predicting Backing Through Hard Times00:02:43
Thank you for a great year of journalism.
Well-deserved Viewers' Choice Award 2024, looking like a busy year also.
We're going to start with a bang in Davos.
If you had to make one prediction for 2024, what do you think is going to be something?
I mean, the world is mad.
There's chaos everywhere.
I mean, even as we speak, the Houthis in Yemen are, you know, there's a terrorist uprising, a violent uprising everywhere.
And I think under Joe Biden, the world is a more dangerous place.
What are your predictions for the world?
Just give me one prediction for news and maybe journalism that you're going to be following.
What are you going to be looking for in 2024?
Well, I'm hoping that something counters the craziness that's happened.
So I'm hoping for a good outcome in the U.S. elections because that seems to be able to set things back on track.
But I'm wiser than to predict, Ezra.
I have no idea.
I couldn't have predicted this year.
So I'm not going to make that mistake for next year.
But what I can promise is that whilst our viewers continue to support us, and I'm so grateful that they have, you know, since I joined in September 3rd of 2020, they've never let us down, even when sometimes I felt like, oh, I don't know if they're going to 100% support the journalism I'm doing here.
But absolutely every time they've had our backs.
All I can predict is they'll have our backs in ensuring that we're there at the front of the story, covering it, telling our other side of the story.
that the mainstream media may not or usually refuse to show.
Well, that's a really nice way to end.
I think you're right.
The U.S. election is probably the single most important event in 2024.
So much turns on it, not just for America, but for every country in the world, including Canada and Australia.
And you're very wise to end with a thank you to our viewers.
We are supported by our viewers only.
We are being demonetized by YouTube.
We take no government funds.
So really, it's only through the grace of our donors that we exist.
Avi, keep up the great work.
I hope they really understand it.
I hope they understand it because I feel like I don't get to say thank you enough to them, especially when sometimes it can be exciting.
You want to get behind anything, but often it's at these times you learn who your real support is and who you can rely on in hard times, in good times.
It's easy to get behind the most popular dude in the room.
But it's during hard times that you get to see how special your supporters are.
And I feel so humbled and grateful for each and every one of them.
Right on.
Well, ditto to that.
And thank you to our viewers in Australia and around the world.