Avi Yemini

Avi Yemini
Born
Avraham Shalom Waks[1]

(1985-10-17) 17 October 1985 (age 38)
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia[2]
NationalityAustralian, Israeli
Citizenship
EducationYeshivah College, Melbourne[1]
Occupations
  • Soldier
  • Reporter
EmployerRebel News (since 2020)
Political partyLiberty Alliance (2018–2019)[1][3]
Military career
Allegiance Israel
Service/branch Israel Defense Forces
Years of service2004–2007
UnitGolani Brigade
Part of a series on
Far-right politics
in Australia
Active organisations
Defunct organisations
People
Literature
Related topics

Avraham Shalom Yemini (né Waks; born 17 October 1985)[4][5][6] is an Australian-Israeli far-right political activist.[7][8][9][10] From 2020 onwards he has worked for Canadian far-right website Rebel News[11] and is currently their Australian Bureau Chief.[2]

Early life

Yemini was born in Melbourne, Victoria to Zephaniah (formerly Stephen) and Hava Waks,[12] and grew up in the Melbourne suburb of St Kilda East.[1] He is one of seventeen children.[1] One of his elder siblings is Manny Waks.[6]

Activities

Yemini served with the Golani Brigade in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) from 2005 until 2008. Most of his active duty was spent along the border of the Gaza Strip.[2][13]

After returning to Australia, Yemini opened his first IDF gym in Caulfield, Victoria followed by a second in Melbourne's CBD in 2016.[14][15] In 2018, Yemeni sold the gyms.[1]

On 4 March 2018, Yemini joined the Australian Liberty Alliance to run as a candidate for the Southern Metropolitan Region at the 2018 Victorian state election.[16] He was unsuccessful, receiving 0.49% of the vote.[17] Through the party and his collaboration with Tommy Robinson and Rebel News, he has been affiliated with the counter-jihad movement.[18] He has described himself as "proudly anti-Islam", Islam as a "barbaric ideology", and Muslim countries as "Islamic shitholes".[19]

In August 2022, Yemini was denied entry to New Zealand due to his 2019 criminal conviction for assaulting his ex-wife.[9] Yemini claimed the decision was due to an article in The New Zealand Herald that described him and fellow content creator Rukshan Fernando as "Australian conspiracy commentators".[20][21] Yemini was allowed entry to New Zealand in 2023.[22]

Legal issues

One of his brothers, Manny Waks, sued Yemini for defamation after he claimed that Waks and their father were harbouring a known paedophile in the family home.[23]

In July 2019, Yemini admitted to throwing a chopping board that hit his former wife on her forehead. He also pleaded guilty to using a carriage service to harass by sending abusive text messages to her, and one charge of breaching an intervention order relating to a video of a man. Yemini's lawyer argued he had not meant to hit her.[24][25]

In 2021, Yemini took legal action against three Victorian parliamentary officials − including former Legislative Assembly speaker Colin Brooks − after he was denied media accreditation in July of that year.[26] Yemini subsequently lost the case.[27]

In 2023, Yemini sued Facebook fact-checkers RMIT FactLab for labeling Rebel News content as "misleading". The case was dismissed as he had "failed to make any formal inquiries via appropriate channels with relevant persons".[10]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Elliott, Tim (18 February 2023). "'He's exploiting people who are genuinely scared': Avi Yemini and the art of outrage". The Age. Archived from the original on 22 March 2023. Retrieved 31 July 2023.
  2. ^ a b c "Avi Yemini joins Rebel News". Rebel News. 4 September 2020. Archived from the original on 31 July 2023. Retrieved 31 July 2023.
  3. ^ Martin, Lisa (15 November 2018). "Victorian Liberal party candidate asked to resign over 'anti-Muslim' video". Guardian Australia. Archived from the original on 31 July 2023. Retrieved 31 July 2023.
  4. ^ Chobocky, Barbara (2002). "Welcome to the Waks Family". Jewish Film Institute. Archived from the original on 16 April 2021. Retrieved 30 January 2024.
  5. ^ "Welcome to the Waks Family". The Age. 18 March 2004. Archived from the original on 18 May 2019. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
  6. ^ a b Levi, Joshua (6 October 2016). "Manny Waks sues brother". The Australian Jewish News. Archived from the original on 29 January 2024. Retrieved 30 January 2024.
  7. ^ McGowan, Michael (24 September 2021). "Workers' rights or the far right: who was behind Melbourne's pandemic protests?". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 24 December 2023. Retrieved 25 December 2023.
  8. ^ "Far right activist Avi Yemini convicted and fined for assaulting ex-wife". Herald Sun. Archived from the original on 21 March 2024. Retrieved 25 December 2023.
  9. ^ a b "Far-right conspiracy theorist Avi Yemini denied entry into New Zealand because of criminal conviction". Newshub. Archived from the original on 25 December 2023. Retrieved 25 December 2023.
  10. ^ a b Sibthorpe, Clare (18 August 2023). "Controversial activist Avi Yemini pulls out of legal fight with RMIT over fact-checking article". News.com.au. Archived from the original on 4 February 2024. Retrieved 30 January 2024.
  11. ^ Rebel News:
    • Perry, Barbara; Scrivens, Ryan (19 August 2019). Right-Wing Extremism in Canada. Springer International. p. 37. ISBN 978-3-030-25169-7. Archived from the original on 2 May 2024. Retrieved 21 October 2020 – via Google Books. In 2015, he established Rebel Media, a far-right outlet that regularly features global and domestic "stars" of the nationalist movement.
    • Titley, Gavan (2 July 2020). "The distribution of nationalist and racist discourse" (PDF). Journal of Multicultural Discourses. 15 (3). Taylor & Francis: 7. doi:10.1080/17447143.2020.1780245. S2CID 221521303. Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 February 2022. Retrieved 22 February 2022. Far-right Twitter accounts come and go, often generating significant traction without any obvious relation to organised movements. As a stage of his reinvention of self after the EDL, its leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon ('Tommy Robinson') reinvented himself as a journalist, working for the Canadian far-right media company Rebel Media.
    • Mirrlees, Tanner (3 August 2018). "The Alt-right's Discourse on "Cultural Marxism": A Political Instrument of Intersectional Hate". Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture & Social Justice. 39 (1). Mount Saint Vincent University: 61. ISSN 1715-0698. Archived from the original on 1 December 2020. Retrieved 21 October 2020. The Rebel Media, a far-right news organization, published articles by Canadian alt-right propagandists such as: "Want to sop cultural Marxist indoctrination? Cut public funding of universities" (Nicholas 2017); "Social justice is socialism in disguise" (Goldy 2016); and "How progressives use our kids for Marxist social experiments" (Goldy 2017).
    • Perry, Barbara; Mirrlees, Tanner; Scrivens, Ryan (27 February 2019). "The Dangers of Porous Borders". Journal of Hate Studies. 14 (1). Gonzaga University: 61. doi:10.33972/jhs.124. Archived from the original on 9 August 2020. Retrieved 21 October 2020. Far-right Canadian media outlets, for instance, have bombarded its subscribers with all kinds of pro-Trump, racist and xenophobic dialogue, both before and after Trump's victory. Rebel Media, a popular far-right online media platform run by Ezra Levant, a controversial Canadian far-right political activist, writer and broadcaster, has been an outright supporter of Trump, publishing countless extreme-right leaning articles on why to support him.
    • Zhang, Xinyi; Davis, Mark (7 June 2022). "E-extremism: A conceptual framework for studying the online far right". New Media & Society. SAGE. doi:10.1177/14614448221098360. ISSN 1461-4448. S2CID 249482748. Archived from the original on 1 October 2022. Retrieved 5 September 2022. Beyond US-based far-right news websites such as Breitbart, Infowars and Epoch Times, other alternative online media outlets include Australia-based XYZ and The Unshackled, Canada-based Rebel News and UK-based Politicalite.com and PoliticalUK.co.uk, just to name a few, which operate as far-right metapolitical channels and counter-publics that strive to influence mainstream culture and discourse (Holt, 2019).
    • Gilligan, Andrew (5 August 2018). "Tommy Robinson winds up bigots and the cash floods in". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Archived from the original on 2022-02-03. Retrieved 2022-02-03. All four, including Robinson himself, were employees of The Rebel Media, a Toronto-based far-right website.
    • Scott, Mark (16 May 2017). "U.S. Far-Right Activists Promote Hacking Attack Against Macron". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 29 July 2017. Retrieved 10 July 2017. Jack Posobiec, a journalist with the far-right news outlet The Rebel, was the first to use the hashtag with a link to the hacked documents online, which was then shared more widely by WikiLeaks.
    • Craig, Sean (19 August 2017). "A fight over a four-bedroom house: The Rebel Media meltdown and the full recording at the centre of the controversy". Global News. Archived from the original on 3 September 2017. Retrieved 29 September 2017. With politicians including Conservative heavyweights Andrew Scheer and Brian Jean swearing off appearances and a raft of exits by prominent contributors, Ezra Levant's far-right video and commentary network The Rebel spent the last week in damage control, trying to distance itself from the extremist alt-right movement whose values many have alleged the site's content too often sympathized with.
  12. ^ Manny Waks sues brother for defamation over paedophile claims Archived 2024-01-29 at the Wayback Machine, theage.com.au. Accessed 29 January 2024.
  13. ^ Hall, Bianca (2016-04-08). "Jewish business IDF Training banned from Facebook after sharing anti-Semitic post". The Age. Archived from the original on 2023-06-28. Retrieved 2023-11-22.
  14. ^ Hall, Bianca (2015-11-01). "Melbourne gym recruits members for Israeli army". The Age. Archived from the original on 2023-12-08. Retrieved 2023-11-22.
  15. ^ "Self Defence Classes, Martial Arts Melbourne, Muay Thai Melbourne, Boxing Melbourne". www.idftraining.com.au. Archived from the original on 2020-06-22. Retrieved 2023-06-26.
  16. ^ "Avi Yemeni is joining forces with ALA" Archived 2019-03-06 at the Wayback Machine Australian Liberty Alliance
  17. ^ "State Election 2018: Southern Metropolitan Region results summary - Victorian Electoral Commission". www.vec.vic.gov.au. Archived from the original on 2018-12-10. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  18. ^ McSwiney, Jordan (2024). Far-Right Political Parties in Australia: Disorganisation and Electoral Failure. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781003848929. Archived from the original on 2024-03-21. Retrieved 2024-03-21.
  19. ^ Halliday, Josh (7 December 2018). "Anti-Islam activists get key roles in 'family-friendly' Brexit march". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 7 December 2018. Retrieved 21 March 2024.
  20. ^ "Parliament protest: Australian conspiracy commentator reportedly denied entry". The New Zealand Herald. 22 August 2022. Archived from the original on 2022-09-23. Retrieved 2024-05-02.
  21. ^ Wilson, Cam (2022-08-23). "Right-wing commentator Avi Yemini denied entry to New Zealand over domestic abuse conviction". Crikey. Archived from the original on 2023-03-27. Retrieved 2024-05-02.
  22. ^ "Far-right conspiracy theorist allowed entry into NZ after originally being denied". Newshub. Archived from the original on 2024-04-11. Retrieved 2024-05-02.
  23. ^ Hall, Bianca (2016-09-27). "Manny Waks sues brother for defamation over 'harbouring paedophile' claims". The Age. Archived from the original on 2017-12-22. Retrieved 2017-12-22.
  24. ^ Andrews, Jon. "Far-right political player Avi Yemini admits unlawful assault on ex-wife by throwing chopping board". Herald Sun. Archived from the original on 2023-06-26. Retrieved 2023-06-26.
  25. ^ "Avi Yemini, 'spokesperson' for Tommy Robinson, convicted of assaulting his ex-wife". The Jewish Chronicle. July 31, 2019. Archived from the original on 2024-04-12. Retrieved 2024-05-02.
  26. ^ "YEMINI V ELASMAR - TRIAL". Supreme Court of Victoria. Archived from the original on 2023-09-22. Retrieved 2023-06-26.
  27. ^ Antrobus, Blake (18 December 2022). "'Press freedom is dead': YouTuber's complaint after Supreme Court dismisses press pass legal fight". news.com.au. Archived from the original on 13 February 2023. Retrieved 30 January 2024.
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