We also bring you an interview with EU representative Johann Phlegmat who discusses the EU's dilemma in adding Hezbollah to its list of terrorist groups. We also have an in-depth report on the unfounded allegations that a pedophile rapist is on the loose in the ultra-Orthodox town Modiin Illit.

Here's the whole episode.

Here's the Obama sketch as a separate clip.

Enjoy and spread far and wide.

Latma is  funded by donations to the David Horowitz Freedom Center's Israel Security Project which I direct. If you would like to contribute to our work, which is funded entirely by viewer contributions, please go to this link. 

According to the report, in accordance with the NGO Transparency Law which requires NGOs to report on donations received from foreign governments, three Israeli NGOs received funding from the US. 

Keshev, a radical leftist "media watchdog" group run by some of Israel's most outspoken, and radical journalists and writers received NIS 492,452 in direct aid from the US government. To understand how subversive Keshev is, it suffices to note that they criticized the Israeli media for rushing to judgment about Fatah's unity deal with Hamas. That is, the group the US supports believes we should not criticize Fatah for joining forces with a genocidal jihadist movement committed to the obliteration of Israel that is in cahoots with the Iranians. 

Through Catholic Relief Services,the US also gave NIS 220,304 to the anti-Israel pressure group B'Tselem. The money was used to fund B'Tselem's video project. B'tselem's video project involves the distribution of video cameras to Palestinians to film snuff films that portry Israelis as aggressive bullies who seek to harm the Palestinians for no reason.

Numerous examples have already been reported of how those film clips have falsely portrayed events. 

Finally, the US government donated NIS 15,474 through the Foundation for Middle East Peace to the far left internet outlet Social TV. To a certain degree, Social TV can be -- and has been -- portrayed as the anti-Zionist answer to Latma, the Hebrew-language media criticism site that I run. But Latma is wholly funded by private contributors and foundations. 

It would have never occurred to me to ask a foreign government to fund the project. It never would have occurred to me to ask a foreign government to get into the media watchdog game in Israel. But then, from reading the report it is clear that the aim of the US government is not, in fact to help Israeli media outlets do a better job reporting on events. Rather, the report indicates that the US government has decided to use radical Israeli NGOs to wage political warfare in Israel. The aim of this campaign is to convince the public that Israel is to blame for the absence of peace with our neighbors. 

It is worth noting that through US Embassy cables published by Wikileaks we learned from B'Tselem's Executive Director Jessica Montell that B'Tselem is almost entirely dependent on foreign governmental assistance. She said that 95 percent of B'tselem's budget is paid for by foreign governments. Montell told her interlocutor at the Embassy that B'Tselem wished to engender an international climate of hostility towards Israel that would make Israeli leaders fear the international response to IDF operations against Palestinian terror campaign so much that they would fear taking action. The cable was written after Operation Cast Lead. B'Tselem was one of the Israeli NGOs that told the Goldstone Commission Israel had committed war crimes in Gaza. 

According to the leaked cable:

The Israeli media itself is already controlled in large part by the far Left. Channel 2 news and the station's flagship satire program "Eretz Nehederet" played a huge role in shaping public perceptions in the last elections. Both worked overtime trying to demonize Naftali Bennett and the Jewish Home Party. This they did after they worked overtime demonizing the winners of Likud's party primaries as right wing extremists. Muli Segev, Eretz Nehederet's editor in chief bragged in an interview in Haaretz that his show was directly responsible for the party's loss of several Knesset seats. 

The media's overwhelming far left bias has been on shocking display this week with their wall-to-wall coverage of the story of the prison suicide of suspected traitor Benjamin Zygier. This man was apparently a double agent, a turncoat. He was imprisoned under a false name, as agreed to by him, his attorneys and his family. He killed himself. His body was sent to his family in Australia for burial. End of story. 

Who cares about him? He was a traitor. 

The entire story was brought to light because three radical post-Zionist and anti-Zionist members of Knesset abused their parliamentary immunity to announce on live television what the military censor had, for reasons of national security placed a gag order on. That is, by covering this story -- and for the past two days, Channel 2, which has a monopoly share of the prime time news ratings -- has devoted half of its broadcast time to the story -- the media is dancing to the tune dictated by the most radical leftist forces in Israeli politics. It is a travesty.

But apparently, the State Department thinks this anti-Israel activism posing as the local media is insufficiently pro-Arab. And so it is funding these even more radical Israeli pressure groups.

We also bring you an interview with the Israeli director of the Oscar-nominee for best documentary for his hit film Five Broken Gatekeepers. He is joined by his patron, the Palestinian Minister of Uncontrollable Rage, Mr. Tawil Fadiha.

Finally, we bring you a behind-the-scenes look at Netanyahu's coalition negotiations.

Enjoy!

Latma is  funded by donations to the David Horowitz Freedom Center's Israel Security Project which I direct. If you would like to contribute to our work, which is funded entirely by viewer contributions, please go to this link. 

Hagel supports US engagement with Hamas. He also allegedly received money from a Hamas-associated organization. 

In all the verbiage we are exposed to everyday, sometimes it is hard to understand the significance of positions like this. On its face, when taken in isolation from reality, calling for the US to engage Hamas seems like an eminently reasonable position. After all, Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian elections. It seized control of Gaza in 2007. It is powerful. Why should the US refuse to legitimize it? Doesn't America like the Palestinians? And didn't the Palestinians choose to be led by Hamas? How can America support the Palestinians and disavow their democratically elected leaders?

But then, nestled up next to these arguments is a little thing called reality. And beyond Harvard-styled pseudo-sophisticated pontifications, it is important to consider the actual significance of a position like that of the soon-to-be-confirmed US Secretary of Defense. Who and what is Hagel seeking to legitimize by adopting this position? What is Hamas?

So here is a clip from 2010 of a speech by senior Hamas leader, (and respected physician), Mahmoud al-Zahar. 

All the senators who plan to vote for Hagel, as well as those, led by Senator John McCain who refuse to filibuster his appointment, need to be asked whether they agree that Hamas should be engaged by the US. And if they don't agree, then how do they justify their support for a man who feels comfortable sitting down with Hamas? Do they think that Hagel's position is a reasonable, legitimate position that they respectfully disagree with? If so, can they explain what is reasonable and legitimate about his position?

Oh, and just in case they think that al-Zahar's position is somehow not that of Hamas's top leaders, here's a link to and interview last week with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal on the BBC's Hardtalk. He categorically rejected the two-state solution. He made clear that at no time will Hamas agree to accept Israel. Rather, Hamas will continue to seek Israel's annihilation in accordance with the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the Palestinian people. 

In the interview, Mashaal also refused to disavow or in any way express regret for the speech he made in Gaza where he called for Israel's complete annihilation, in accordance with Hamas's covenant and the teachings of Hassan al Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, as Banna is quoted in the Hamas covenant. 

Here's that speech from December 27, 2012.

I know, I know, you probably all are wondering whether he's a Muslim. For my part, I still can't get my arms around the idea that a bum who hitch hiked around Indonesia with long hair and an earring is going to be the CIA Director.

Okay, enough joking around. I know, his personal grooming choices are his business. He has since taken a shower and gotten a haircut.

But I think the question of whether or not he is actually a Muslim or just an Islamophile is just as unimportant as his hippy days learning to love Islam. And by the same token, I think that it is unimportant if Obama is or isn't a Muslim. I don't care whom they pray to. 

The question is whether their world view, and their policies would be any different if they were Muslims. And I think the answer to that is no. And since it is their policies, not their beliefs that matter to the world, they should be judged for that. 

Aside from his hippy past, and his horrible, obsequious Arabic, the thing that made me most uncomfortable about Brennan's whole paean to Islam is the fact that he said "Palestine" twice and never said Israel, and when he finally felt compelled to say Jerusalem, after saying "Al Quds" twice he sounded like he was either going to spit or apologize for mentioning the word Jerusalem in the presence of his audience. So does it matter if this man is a Muslim or not? Not in the least. He's just as dangerous either way. 

I wonder if Obama will bring him along for the visit. Can't wait to welcome him to JERUSALEM, YERUSHALAYIM, the capital of the JEWISH people for the past 3,000 years. Oh, and his advisers should probably mention to John Brennan that the name of our country is Israel. There is no such country as Palestine. And there has never been a country named Palestine. Perhaps one of the senators could mention that to him during his confirmation hearing. 

Enjoy!

Latma is funded by donations to the David Horowitz Freedom Center's Israel Security Project which I direct. If you would like to contribute to our work, which is funded entirely by viewer contributions, please go to this link.