Peter Lavak is a criminal barrister from Sydney who has spent the last 30 years fighting anti-Semitism in the Jewish community. He has worked in over 100 murder trials and has been involved in more than 100 murder cases. He is a dedicated advocate for the defence of the Jewish people and has always been a defender of Israel. He was born in Czechoslovakia to a Jewish father and Czechoslovakian mother. He grew up in a very poor family and had to work very hard to get into the legal profession. He had a great family life and a loving family life until the age of 20, when his father was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to a concentration camp. It was then that he developed a deep and abiding love for the country of Israel and its people.
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00:00:46.540Welcome back to the Yamini Report. Today's guest.
00:00:49.860Exciting because we've introduced him to you only a couple of weeks ago, and the response has been phenomenal.
00:00:55.760A lot of you calling him a local Aussie hero, Peter Lavak, the barrister from Sydney.
00:07:21.980And that made me realise, mate, how ephemeral life is, how easily and quickly it can end, and how precious it is, and how precious freedom is.
00:07:34.180So then you guys, how did you get to Australia?
00:07:36.160Well, eventually, after we got across to Austria, after a couple of months, we ended up in Australia as refugees, and we settled in Sydney, and I grew up in Australia.
00:07:59.280A lot of the time, and is that because of the life, why do you have such love for Australia after, you know, obviously, you came here as a refugee, and not all refugees today love Australia as much as you do.
00:08:13.200So what was it about your experience that made you love it?
00:08:15.900Well, mate, I love the freedom, the democracy, the ability to get ahead in life, the ability to follow your dreams and your opportunities, which a lot of countries don't have.
00:09:56.660And it all started to change in 1997 when the PRC, People's Republic of China, took it over from the Brits.
00:10:06.520The place started going down the drain very quickly after that.
00:10:11.100I hung in for another six years, but I could see the writing on the wall.
00:10:15.820China promised that the system would remain the same for 50 years, but it didn't.
00:10:21.760It started going down the drain very quickly.
00:10:24.320So I hung in another six years, and I left there in 2003.
00:10:28.400Yeah, because I actually covered the big protests in 2018, 2019, which were quashed by essentially the COVID pandemic, which seemed very convenient for the Communist Party.
00:10:49.100It's essentially, it's part of China now, which is super sad because even in 2018, 2019, where you saw most of the country out on the streets, there was one protest where there was, they say, I think it was two, what's the population?
00:11:06.920I'm trying to remember, because I remember it was like one in four, but so it was a quarter of the population was literally out on the streets at this one protest.
00:11:13.320And it was the most peaceful protest ever.
00:11:15.340They didn't want to be part of communist China.
00:11:18.080Was that what you experienced when you were there in those 18 years?
00:11:21.780Mate, the Hong Kong Chinese love democracy.
00:11:24.240And what happened with crackdowns, mate, they started arresting protesters who were holding up signs, pro-democracy placards.
00:11:35.940They were arresting them, and they were arrested, dragged through the courts and locked up.
00:11:40.840So what the protesters then did, they were holding up placards that were blank, completely blank, as a symbol of their activism for pro-democracy.
00:11:50.020The cops started arresting them for holding up blank placards.
00:11:54.920Those people were arrested and locked up, and they have now completely crushed any remnants of rebellion against the Chinese government.
00:12:06.640The place has never been the same, and I will never go back.
00:12:09.840And I think that's like a warning that we should, that the West should heed is, you know, if you don't stand up to the communists, to China, to Russia, to Iran, to North Korea,
00:12:25.080if you don't stand up to these authoritarian dictatorships, they're going to take over, they're going to spread, because that's really their wish.
00:13:03.260Yeah, and I hope there's an uprising, mate, because the Iranian people have been brutalised and oppressed by this brutal, murderous regime.
00:13:13.900This is the regime that sends morality police around the place to arrest little girls who aren't wearing their hijabs properly, dragging them back to the police station and beating them to death.
00:13:29.180Iranians have had a gut full of that, and they're cheering now that Israel is attacking Iran and going after the regime, mate, and the whole world should be cheering.
00:13:40.360Tell me, so in your experience, it's a fascinating story, I didn't know it, about how your family got here to Australia and your experience there escaping the commies.
00:13:52.540You said you, did I hear you correctly, you had a brother with you when you escaped?
00:14:18.840And was the, I guess, was the family's love for the Jewish people and Israel also there, or was that something that you just picked up from your experience in life?
00:17:36.440Well, my belief, my very strong belief is that the cops were protecting a pedophile ring in the town at that time.
00:17:43.980And I know from evidence I've uncovered in the form of witness statements that at least one police officer and one schoolteacher in the town were involved in pedophile criminal activities.
00:18:55.780OK, mate, there's two reasons why we're going to Israel.
00:18:59.140Number one, I want to reassure the Israeli people that our gutless, useless Prime Minister does not speak for me.
00:19:09.020He does not speak for the vast majority of ordinary Aussies when he vilifies Israel, when he betrays Israel, when he defames Israel with blood libels, for example, claiming that Israel is causing starvation in Gaza.
00:19:27.880That's caused by Hamas gunmen who hijack the aid supplies at gunpoint.
00:19:34.740That's why there's a starvation problem there.
00:19:37.520Albanese should go over there and get his facts straight, but he won't because he's too gutless.
00:19:42.340Penny Wong, when she was there, she was too gutless to visit the sites of the atrocities, which is a massive slap in the face to the Israeli people.
00:19:52.100Now, that's the first reason we want to go and do this.
00:19:55.000The second reason, I've got a lot of contacts already in Israel.
00:20:00.200We are going to interview survivors of the massacre.
00:20:06.900We are going to interview returned hostages.
00:20:11.000I'm going to interview IDF soldiers and commanders.
00:20:15.280I'm going to give talks at synagogues to rabbis.
00:20:19.020I'm going to give press conferences to the media.
00:20:22.060And my hope is, and I'm also hoping that my contacts can persuade the IDF to get us into Gaza, into the combat zones so we can film some of the fighting.
00:20:35.140But most important of all, I'm hoping, I'm hoping, this is my biggest hope, is to interview Gazan citizens who are now standing up and protesting and rising up against Hamas because they now realise that Hamas is the source of all their problems, not Israel.
00:21:28.820Aussies generally are very complacent, very apathetic, and I've got to let Aussies know what's really happening there to counter all this bullshit propaganda spouted by Hamas and regurgitated by the left-wing neo-Marxist media in this country.
00:21:47.680That's the only source of information Aussies are getting, the neo-Marxist left-wing media, which is perpetrated by Hamas.
00:22:45.600Council culture reared its ugly head a couple of nights ago.
00:22:50.840Tuesday, 17th of May, only a couple of days ago.
00:22:54.860I went there with my personal assistant and a number of members of the Jewish community to vigorously oppose a motion that was put forward by the Greens,
00:23:07.700which would have effectively allowed pro-Hamas, anti-Semitic, pro-terrorist thugs to spew vitriol and hatred on the beautiful beaches of Manly,
00:23:19.840the peaceful streets of Manly, which is right in my front yard where I live, and I will not allow that to happen.
00:23:29.920The motion, the motion basically, I haven't got the details, but the motion would have given the green light to pro-Palestinian demonstrators
00:23:40.060to come to Manly and protest with their flags and scream abuse and vitriol, as they have been doing at Hyde Park,
00:23:49.280as they did on the Opera House stairs, as they've been doing regularly in Melbourne.
00:23:53.940That would have been the effect of that motion.
00:23:56.880Now, what happened was, my personal assistant wrote to the council.
00:29:42.680And on behalf of the Australian Jews, I do want to say thank you for all the work that you do.
00:29:50.520You know, it's I think since October 7, we've realized who our friends are, who our real true friends are and who all the fakers who pretended all those years,
00:30:02.420all those interfaith programs that so much of the community leadership worked so hard for so many years to build.
00:30:08.940I, in my defense, have been calling them out for many years because I saw the writing on the wall.
00:30:15.840I've been in a lot of these groups on Facebook and have seen what the Islamic community here actually thinks about our community,
00:30:25.040not what they say in interfaith groups when they're trying to get extra funding or whatever.
00:30:29.400So, um, so it is amazing to see people like you, uh, from all walks of life, from Aussies around the country, uh, who have no real, I guess, dog in the fight, but you're, you're, you're still willing to go.
00:31:05.920Uh, our government seems adamant to, to, to bring in at the moment.
00:31:10.760Well, mate, I'll tell you what, our country's in serious trouble.
00:31:14.400And I realised that when I saw a video clip of NASA Mashney boasting into the camera, Melbourne is ours, Australia is ours, the world is ours.
00:31:31.160But that's the sort of refugee that we're now looking at.
00:31:34.720Now, I understand now why Donald Trump is totally pissed off with Albanese.
00:31:39.740Not only will Albanese refuse to increase his defence spending, but he's recently barred entry to two, um, Israeli politicians while he's allowed in 3,000 Ghazan refugees who are potential terrorists.
00:31:58.900No wonder Trump's pissed off with him.
00:32:00.640And, uh, he, I reckon he's going to put the, put the axe on this orca still, thanks to Albanese.
00:32:07.840Can I just say one more thing about the council?
00:32:10.720From what happened the other night, it seems to me that these people who sit on local government councils suffer from this massive delusion that they are actually important.
00:32:24.180Now, where does this delusion come from?
00:32:27.380These people fix potholes and collect garbage.
00:32:31.180They've got no business sticking their nose into foreign affairs.
00:32:35.360That's not part of their job description.
00:32:37.780That's way above, way above their pay scale.
00:32:41.020And most important of all, it's way beyond their intellectual capacities.
00:32:45.380So my, my message to councils is, butt out, stick to what you know, stick to what you're paid for.
00:32:52.140Well, yeah, I, to be fair, they don't, they don't know roads, raids and rubbish, but they should be.
00:32:58.020And that's what, that's exactly what they get paid for.
00:33:00.800Mate, but they don't even do that properly.