Rania Khalek Profile picture
Journalist and host of Dispatches on @BTnewsroom.
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Jul 30 7 tweets 3 min read
1/ Let’s be clear about which side you’re on if you oppose Venezuela’s elected govt: ISRAEL’S SIDE

I’m getting angry responses to my Venezuela reporting from ppl who purport to be pro-Palestine yet repeat lies about Venezuela promoted by the same media justifying genocide on Gaza.

🧵 2/ Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who is currently behind a violent coup attempt, loves Israel.

In 2018 she wrote a letter to Israel’s Netanyahu begging him to launch a military intervention against her country’s socialist government telesurtv.net/news/opositora…
Feb 16 20 tweets 5 min read
Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah is speaking now, you can watch with English translation here: presstv.ir/Live Nasrallah says that the enemy is wrong to think that killing our leaders and women and children would make us back down. On the contrary. Martyrdom of these leaders gives us more momentum, he goes on to list examples over the decades.
Dec 4, 2023 4 tweets 2 min read
This reminds me of how white supremacists historically painted black and brown men as rapists to justify lynching them.

Palestinian women are coming out of Israeli prisons saying they were threatened with sexual assault and worse. Meanwhile some of the most horrific claims made by Israeli officials and their supporters have thus far no evidence to back them up.

It is an insult to the survivors of sexual assault to use it for propaganda to justify genocide while covering up for what Israeli officers do to Palestinian women.

All the people who participated in this racist genocide apologia will be remembered poorly.
Never forget how we were lied to about Gaddafi giving viagra to African mercenaries to rape women, all to justify destroying Libya.

Never forget all of the black men and boys who were imprisoned and lynched in the US over false claims they raped OR whistled at white women.

This is an old and familiar script meant to conjure up support for BOMBING AND STARVING PALESTINIAN BABIES.
Nov 3, 2023 20 tweets 4 min read
Hassan Nasrallah is emphasizing that the Oct 7 Al Aqsa Flood operation was 100% Palestinian & the secrecy of it even from the rest of the resistance axis guaranteed its success. Seems to be meant for those speculating Iran and/or Hezbollah were involved. He affirms "for both friends and enemies to recognize that the decision to resistance is led by the leaders of the resistance. The Iranian gov has no oversight over its decisions or its leaders." A message to those calling the different factions Iran-controlled proxies.
Oct 29, 2023 5 tweets 1 min read
Something to keep in mind as we feel helpless watching this nightmare play out is that it has exposed the most powerful army in the region.

Despite all the carnage Israel has inflicted on Gaza, it hasn’t made any major military advances despite its clear military superiority. The Israeli military is far weaker than we thought. It cannot respond easily to resistance operations carried out by militants living in a death camp without serious help from the U.S. And even then it relies almost entirely on dropping high tech weapons on civilians.
Oct 9, 2023 7 tweets 1 min read
Today’s talking point lecturing Palestinians seems to be about the optics of armed attacks on settlers going about their daily lives, that doing this is morally wrong, makes it harder for Palestinians to gain international support & easier for Israel to call them terrorists. First, Israel calls Palestinians terrorists no matter what they do. When they peacefully march they are gunned down and called terrorists. When they shelter in their homes they are bombed without warning & called terrorists. When they advocate boycott they’re called terrorists.
Apr 4, 2023 4 tweets 3 min read
At Mexican President @lopezobrador_’s daily press briefing w/ @ZoPepperC Mexican president @lopezobrador_ and officials from his admin giving a very convincing presentation about measures they’re taking against fentanyl trafficking, a direct response to accusations & threats from Lindsey Graham. Also calling US threats an attack on Mexican sovereignty
Mar 18, 2023 15 tweets 8 min read
We’re live-streaming today’s antiwar rally in DC at the @BTnewsroom YouTube channel, be sure to tune in if you couldn’t make it. I’ll be there coming to you live as well! youtube.com/live/zP4IEXwJP… Getting ready for the antiwar rally in DC outside the White House, no more escalation in Ukraine or anywhere else!
Apr 16, 2022 8 tweets 2 min read
What’s wrong w/ the US airline industry? I finally made it to my destination after almost 2 days of flight delays & cancellations for a journey that should’ve only taken a few hours. I’m blown away by what I witnessed. Has US domestic travel always been this much of a nightmare? Endless flight delays that make you miss your connection, so many inexplicable cancellations and then crazy price gouging by hotels and airlines who swoop in to take advantage of the desperation. What a country!
Mar 19, 2022 7 tweets 2 min read
1 First of all, yesterday you were speechless if not tweetless. Unfortunately you couldn’t keep your mouth shut for long. More evidence than against Hitler? Are you crazy or just uneducated? 2 There’s nothing especially egregiously evil about Assad or unique about his crimes. Unfortunately civil wars, insurgencies & their brutal suppression are all too common throughout history. The war would have ended much earlier had policies you advocated not been implemented.
Jul 18, 2021 7 tweets 3 min read
1/ After being in Iraq 2 weeks ago when the electrical grid shut down, I found the following passages in Neta C Crawford’s “Accountability for Killing” about the aftermath of America’s 1991 war on Iraq enlightening (no pun intended).

Destroying Iraq’s electricity was intentional Image 2/ US military leaders openly viewed destruction of Iraq’s electricity as “psychological warfare … exceptionally valuable in creating the system wide strategic paralysis we wanted to impose on Iraq … the Iraqi people would overthrow their government if they felt enough pain.” Image
Jun 12, 2021 6 tweets 3 min read
The US armed jihadist death squads in Syria to collapse the state. When that failed the US imposed sanctions that are starving Syrians in ways you cannot fathom.

Can someone help me understand why the TYT crowd is attacking Aaron Mate instead of exposing the above injustice? You call yourself progressive while perpetuating neocon drivel that justifies the destruction of an entire country. Labels like assadist and dictator lover are sooo disconnected from THIS reality.

salon.com/2017/05/16/ign…
Oct 30, 2020 7 tweets 2 min read
“But the pathologies, illiberalism, and repressive mentality that led to the bizarre spectacle of my being censored by my own media outlet are ones that are by no means unique to The Intercept.” It’s TRUE greenwald.substack.com/p/my-resignati… The ideological conformity at center-left outlets has always been there but I think it became more rigid after Trump’s election, they all started behaving less like adversarial outlets and more like msm outlets that accept CIA narratives w/out question. It’s been awful to watch
Aug 12, 2020 6 tweets 2 min read
This is disgusting. Lebanon is in so much pain with one crisis after another. The US government sees everything through the lens of how it can pressure Iran and in the process causes immeasurable suffering for regular people who this will suffocate even more Hezbollah is the least responsible for the economic crisis (how many banks to their guys own? Exactly!) America’s local allies are the ones who created the corrupt Ponzi scheme and buried the country. These “anti-corruption” sanctions are a bs attempt to dominate and meddle
Aug 4, 2020 10 tweets 3 min read
There was a massive explosion in Beirut, Lebanon. I thought maybe it’s an earthquake, my building shook and the windows all blew open. But the port is reportedly on fire and there’s red smoke in the sky so maybe it’s connected to that. Terrifying. I’m still shaking, but okay. This is where I work. Really thankful I wasn’t home! Had I been sitting here during the explosion I’d probably be dead. Ironically I left the house bc the electricity went out. Never tonight I’d be so happy about Lebanon’s power cuts
Jul 30, 2020 6 tweets 2 min read
1/ Maffick, the company I work for, is suing Facebook for falsely labeling us “Russia state controlled media,” which is meant to scare away our audience. This FALSE label came after years of lobbying by state department-backed think tanks that want our antiwar content censored. 2/ This is soft censorship that makes it impossible for Maffick to diversify its client base and pursue commercial interests all because of some paranoid think tanks like the Atlantic Council and German Marshall Fund who want to erase all criticism of US wars and empire.
Jun 22, 2020 4 tweets 2 min read
My nephew and niece are taking a personal finance summer class. It’s a high school graduation requirement. Seems good, right? Until you get to the part where they learn the virtues of Milton Friedman and how capitalism = freedom. Propaganda everywhere. If you have a planned economy you will only have one egg to eat. That’s what they teach American children. We’re also told that lack of food is never a problem in a market economy. Remind me how many children go to bed hungry in this country?
Feb 22, 2020 4 tweets 2 min read
On the eve of the Nevada caucus anonymous people leaked to the media that the “intelligence community” told Bernie Sanders that Russia is interfering to get him elected. This is a coordinated smear intended to hurt Bernie & it won’t stop here. Validating it is the wrong response. Former Obama official who now works for the shady censorship promoting Alliance for Securing Democracy says that suggestions that the Dem primary is rigged or that certain candidates are favored by the establishment is Russian propaganda washingtonpost.com/national-secur…
Feb 18, 2020 4 tweets 1 min read
This is such a shameful thing for Elizabeth Warren to say. Bernie Sanders multi-racial working class coalition is built on a “foundation of hate”? Really? These people are so insulting and cynical. This is the behavior of sore losers with zero principles The coalition that wants everyone to have healthcare, wants to end the wars, wants rich people to pay taxes, wants to free young people of the chains of student debt, wants to end racist policing, their coalition is built in hate??
Feb 8, 2020 10 tweets 3 min read
1/ Thank you for thinking of me Shoeib. I’m always happy when you take a break from advising the government in Abu Dhabi and remember to slander me. Desecrating graves is the least of the crimes and horrors being committed in this final act of the Syrian war. 2/ I never whitewashed killers on any side. Can you say the same? Anybody w/ a conscience should have wanted the war to stop rather than hope it continues until the regime falls. This video deserves a proper thread bc it has an interesting back story.
Dec 29, 2019 11 tweets 4 min read
In a dangerous escalation in its proxy war against Iran, the US is attacking an Iraqi group inside Iraqi territory that was critical to defeating ISIS in the name of “self defense” while also laughably claiming to respect Iraqi sovereignty
defense.gov/Newsroom/Relea… The PMF group that was hit by the Americans has been fighting ISIS for years. They were on the front lines protecting Iraq from ISIS in Syria and engaged in the ongoing battles with ISIS in the Syrian and Iraqi deserts. They were THE line of defense.