This is a part 2, tailing problematic journalists that are pro-regime. If you haven’t read the first post, I recommend it, otherwise I’m going to briefly go over the fact that as leftists.. We have to fundamentally do better in who we trust as our sources. Let’s investigate the bs, shall we?
- Vanessa Beeley. Beeley is an “independent journalist” in Syria, with a healthy critique on NGOs and their power complexes in the world… Despite having been sent to Syria by a NGO member of the United Nations. She’s a writer for 21st Century Wire, founded by Patrick Henningsen, whose an editor with Infowars. Not only is that suspect, but she’s also publishes for the Centre (another conspiracy website) linked in my prior post. She’s frequently given platforms with Ron Paul (really, the name alone screams conspiracy theories) and the British Constitution Party (imagine US Tea Party), a right wing populist group that is chaired by Roger Hayes, a former UKIP party member (to which UKIP MPs defended him upon getting arrested for refusal to pay taxes). Not just that, but as an independent journalist relying on Fares Shehabi, pro-Assad Syrian MP and head of Aleppo’s Chamber of Industry, who frequently funds and provides security for other independent journalists such as Eva Bartlett (who also went with Beeley’s NGO delegation). Here’s a photo with Beeley seemingly entirely objective with a regime politician about Aleppo.
To add further intrigue to Beeley’s involvement is her accusations of Max Blumenthal plagiarizing her, Eva Bartlett, and Tim Anderson (the white nationalist friend, whom they seem to roll with) for his Syrian pieces. This is interesting, not only in that it puts her in complicity with journalists that get hosted by holocaust deniers, (Eva, shame) but.. What if its true? Blumenthal would’ve pulled from conspiracy theorists. If its false? It worsens their credibility. She even calls out Rania.
That leads us to our second “independent journalist” for the day.
- Rania Khalek. Khalek is a pretty reknown journalist with a diverse background, I’m in league with her support on Palestine. However, there’s some really problematic shit when we put the Syrian microscope on and what she has in common with white nationalists. Khalek came under fire, both necessarily and by opportunists, for her participation in a two-day event held by the British Syrian Society, an organization cofounded and led by Fawaz Akhras, Bashar Al-Assad’s father-in-law (a quick google search reveals), which is an apparent conflict of interest. She argues she was listed as speaker, partially her to blame because she hadn’t been actively engaging the conference.. But there’s a few questions to that. How does that just happen? Why does a pro-government NGO headed by Assad’s father-in-law see you as someone that could benefit their platform? Isn’t that a bit of a hint hint wink wink nudge nudge, they wouldn’t put you on there if they expected problems. Neither does it help when “terrorism expert” Max Abrahms, who continually derides Palestinians is also congratulatory on your Syrian work and you develop a friendly twitter relationship over it.
(What’s the correlation there, Abrahms..? What’s her being Palestinian have anything to do with it?)
Let’s also investigate her problematic af use of language when describing political situations. To start with, I can’t possibly be the only one who thinks this is problematic of her:
Really bad play on headline titles.
She clearly understands this:
Then she says stuff such as: 
Obviously a bit problematic, but does it mean shes something like antisemitic which is traditionally used by right wingers as a means for trying to undermine anti-Zionist? No-
Look closely at her response. “but “Zionism in the Age of Dictators” is a completely factual book”. Okay, now check out this hate group real quick, the Institute for Historical Review. Nazis love sounding objective. Oh my, what is this essay? Sounds awfully Nazi-typical. I wonder what their sources are… Oh. The one Rania Khalek said is a completely factual book. That’s a bit of a problem..
Comrades, we’ve got to do better.