Latma ( he, לאטמה, translation from Arabic "slap in the face") is a satirical
right-wing Israeli website that also produces a weekly satirical news show.
The website was created in 2008 by a group of journalists claiming that "the only way to improve the Public discourse is exposing the true face of the news and journalism in whole". According to the site, the majority of the Israeli media, and especially the satire that is presented in them, lean to the political left. The site contains criticism about media outlets, reporters and journalists. The criticism is mostly directed towards politically biased articles. The site's editor,
Caroline Glick
Caroline Glick ( he, קרולין גליק; born 1969) is an American-born Israeli conservative columnist, journalist, and author. She writes for '' Israel Hayom, Breitbart News'', ''The Jerusalem Post'', and ''Maariv''. She is adjunct senior f ...
, told the ''
Jerusalem Post'' that the group was founded with the intention of using comedy to critique the "egregious leftist slant of news coverage in this country."
According to ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', Latma "is an initiative of the
Center for Security Policy
The Center for Security Policy (CSP) is a US far-right, anti-Muslim, Washington, D.C.-based think tank. The organization's founder and current president is Frank Gaffney Jr. who is known for promoting falsehoods about former U.S. President B ...
, a Washington think tank."
The Latma website editor,
Caroline Glick
Caroline Glick ( he, קרולין גליק; born 1969) is an American-born Israeli conservative columnist, journalist, and author. She writes for '' Israel Hayom, Breitbart News'', ''The Jerusalem Post'', and ''Maariv''. She is adjunct senior f ...
, serves as Adjunct Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Center for Security Policy.
The site's editor is Caroline Glick. The regular writers are Shuky Blass and Avishai Ivri. The site's CEO is Shlomo Blass.
Latma TV
LatmaTV is staffed by Tal Gil'ad (screenplay), Avishay Ivri, the editor, directors Aviv and Yoni Karsutzki, writers
Noam Jacobson and Yehuda Safra, and the actors. Guest writers include Shlomi Cohen Tzemah ("Catz") and Itay Elitzur.
The Tribal Update
One of Latma's creations is "The Tribal Update", a mock news show, featuring anchors
Ronit Shapira (née Avrahamof) and
Elchanan Even-Chen.
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
News characterizes the program as "a parody TV show — kind of like ''
Saturday Night Live
''Saturday Night Live'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock (streaming service), Peacock. ...
s Weekend Update." According to CBS, the anchor gravely explains, in Hebrew, that "this is the newscast that reaches conclusions long before the facts are known."
Swedish antisemitism satire
Following the 2009
Aftonbladet-Israel controversy, in which a writer for
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
tabloid
Aftonbladet alleged that the
IDF
IDF or idf may refer to:
Defence forces
* Irish Defence Forces
* Israel Defense Forces
*Iceland Defense Force, of the US Armed Forces, 1951-2006
* Indian Defence Force, a part-time force, 1917
Organizations
* Israeli Diving Federation
* Interac ...
harvested organs of
Palestinians, LatmaTV produced a clip a parody on
ABBA
ABBA ( , , formerly named Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid or Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Frida) are a Swedish supergroup formed in Stockholm in 1972 by Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. The group ...
's song "Gimme, Gimme, Gimme a Man After Midnight" entitle
''Primi Primi Primitive and Phlegmatic''in which the Swedish foreign minister sings about how primitive and cowardly he is. The clip became a hit after it was quickly picked up by the leading newspaper in Sweden,
DN.se, and by Swedish and Norwegian bloggers. Latma website director Shlomo Blass said, "We were surprised by how quickly the clip took-off, we must have hit a sensitive nerve".
''We Con the World''
In 2010 Latma produced a
viral video
A viral video is a video that becomes popular through a viral process of Internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites such as YouTube as well as social media and email.Lu Jiang, Yajie Miao, Yi Yang, ZhenZhong Lan, Alexander Haupt ...
entitle
''We Con the World''satirizing the political intentions of activists aboard the
MV Mavi Marmara
MV ''Mavi Marmara'' is a Comoros-flagged passenger ship, which was formerly owned and operated by İDO Istanbul Fast Ferries Co. Inc. on the line Sarayburnu, Istanbul-Marmara Island- Avşa Island in the Sea of Marmara. Built at the Golden G ...
, the Turkish-owned flagship that led the "blockade busting"
Free Gaza flotilla.
The video is a parody of the 1985 song "
We Are the World
"We Are the World" is a charity single originally recorded by the supergroup USA for Africa in 1985. It was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie and produced by Quincy Jones and Michael Omartian for the album '' We Are the World''. Wi ...
," by
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over a ...
and
Lionel Richie.
Israeli Government Press Office officials accidentally sent it to a list of journalists, and three hours later sent an apology describing the emailed video as having been "inadvertently released."
The clip received over 3 million hits on
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
.
In July 2011, while the second flotilla to Gaza was planned, Latma released another parody about the flotilla: a parody of
Beach Boys
A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc shell ...
' song and video ''
Fun, Fun, Fun'' called ''Guns, Guns, Guns'', where the flotilla sailors sing about their purpose: to bring weapons to Gaza. This video had less success than ''We Con the World''.
''The Three Terrors''
''The Three Terrors''was produced in June 2010 as a sequel to ''We Con the World.'' It features three tenors who represent Iran, Turkey and Syria and who resemble
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and
Bashar Assad
Bashar Hafez al-Assad, ', Levantine pronunciation: ; (, born 11 September 1965) is a Syrian politician who is the 19th president of Syria, since 17 July 2000. In addition, he is the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and the S ...
singing joyfully about using terrorism to conquer the world "from Tennessee to Teheran."
Other videos
In August 2010, Latma release a parody of
Tom Jones's song and video "
Sex Bomb" calle
''The Iranian Bomb'' where a fictional Iranian Minister of Destruction sings about his plans to acquire nuclear weapons. The goal of the video is to bring worldwide attention to the
Iranian nuclear program
The nuclear program of Iran is an ongoing scientific effort by Iran to research nuclear technology that can be used to make nuclear weapons. Iran has several research sites, two uranium mines, a Nuclear reactor technology, research reactor, an ...
.
Hakol Shafit
In 2015, the show began to air on
Channel 1 under the name ''Hakol Shafit''.
Awards
* Latma was awarded the Israel Media Watch 2011 prize, given to "organizations that made courageous, meaningful, and quality contributions to the criticism of the media in Israel". It was chosen by an online poll involving over 4,000 voters.
According to Israel Media Watch, Latma brings balance to the left-wing bias of mainstream Israeli satire.
External links
Latma TV youtube channel
References
{{reflist, refs=
[Flotilla Choir: 'We Con the World'](_blank)
Tzippe Barrow, June 4, 2010, Christian Broadcasting Network.
[ ''One on One: Right hook to the funny bone of the body politic,''](_blank)
The Jerusalem Post, 3/18/2009.
[Israelis Explain, and Mock, Flotilla Clash](_blank)
June 4, 2010, Rober Mackey, New York Times.
June 4, 2010, Dan Raviv.
[Swedish anti-Semitism satire clip a hit](_blank)
Jerusalem Post 18-09-2009
[{{Citation , url = http://www.energypublisher.com/article.asp?id=34229 , first = Martin , last = Barillas , title = Parody video mocks the deadly Gaza Flotilla , date = June 4, 2010 , publisher = Energy Publisher , url-status = dead , archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20100610023341/http://www.energypublisher.com/article.asp?id=34229 , archivedate = June 10, 2010 .]
[PR blunder: Israeli government’s press office sends Flotilla incident parody video to journalists](_blank)
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100608140644/http://wireupdate.com/local/pr-blunder-israeli-governments-press-office-sends-flotilla-incident-parody-video-to-journalists/ , date=2010-06-08 June 4, 2010, BNO News.
[{{Citation , url = http://www.nu.nl/algemeen/2262684/israelische-excuses-pr-blunder.html , title = Israëlische excuses na pr-blunder , date = 4 June 2010 , publisher = NU , place = NL , language = Dutch.]
[''Gaffe di Israele: video-farsa sulla strage della nave,''](_blank)
La Stampa (4/6/2010)
[YouTube removes ‘We Con the World’ video](_blank)
The Jerusalem Post 14-06-2010
[{{cite news, title=New Spoof Video Targets Iran, url=http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=185866, newspaper=]The Jerusalem Post
''The Jerusalem Post'' is a broadsheet newspaper based in Jerusalem, founded in 1932 during the British Mandate of Palestine by Gershon Agron as ''The Palestine Post''. In 1950, it changed its name to ''The Jerusalem Post''. In 2004, the paper ...
, author=Hoffman, Gil, date=August 25, 2010, accessdate=2010-08-25
[{{cite news, url=http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=201959, title='Post' Reporter, Latma Site Win Award for Media Criticism, newspaper=]The Jerusalem Post
''The Jerusalem Post'' is a broadsheet newspaper based in Jerusalem, founded in 1932 during the British Mandate of Palestine by Gershon Agron as ''The Palestine Post''. In 1950, it changed its name to ''The Jerusalem Post''. In 2004, the paper ...
, author=Hartman, Ben, date=January 3, 2011, accessdate=2011-01-03
[{{cite news, url=http://www.jpost.com/Features/InThespotlight/Article.aspx?id=234191, title=One-sided humor is not funny, author1=Pollak, Eli , author2=Medad, Israel , newspaper=]The Jerusalem Post
''The Jerusalem Post'' is a broadsheet newspaper based in Jerusalem, founded in 1932 during the British Mandate of Palestine by Gershon Agron as ''The Palestine Post''. In 1950, it changed its name to ''The Jerusalem Post''. In 2004, the paper ...
, date=August 17, 2011, accessdate=August 18, 2011
Criticism of journalism
Musical parodies
News parodies
Israeli satirists
Israeli political satire
Israeli political websites