Jihad Watch
Type of site
Blog
Available inEnglish
OwnerRobert Spencer
Created byRobert Spencer and Hugh Fitzgerald
URLjihadwatch.org
RegistrationNone
Launched23 September 2003
Current statusActive

Jihad Watch is an American far-right[5] anti-Muslim[11] conspiracy blog operated by Robert Spencer.[7][12][13][14] A project of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, Jihad Watch is the most popular blog within the counter-jihad movement.[15]

Organization

The site features commentary by multiple editors, and its most frequent editor is Robert Spencer.[16] It is a project of the David Horowitz Freedom Center.[15] Dhimmi Watch was a blog on the Jihad Watch site, also maintained by Spencer, focusing on alleged outrages by Muslims.[17]

Funding

The Horowitz Freedom Center has paid Spencer, as Jihad Watch's director, a $132,000 salary in 2010. Jihad Watch has also received funding from donors supporting the Israeli right,[16] and a variety of individuals and foundations, like Bradley Foundation and Joyce Chernick, wife of Aubrey Chernick.[18] Politico said that during 2008–2010, "the lion's share of the $920,000 it [David Horowitz Freedom Center] provided over the past three years to Jihad Watch came from [Joyce] Chernick".[18] In 2015, Jihad Watch received approximately $100,000 in revenue, with three quarters of that revenue coming from donations.[19]

Content and traffic

Articles begin with editorial commentary, then follow usually with a linked excerpt from a news website.

Jihad Watch is one of the world's most popular sites on the subject of terrorism, with more than 6,000 other sites being linked to it.[7] It is the most popular counter-jihad blog.[15]

Reception

Jihad Watch has widely been described as an anti-Muslim conspiracy blog.[7][12][13] Jihad Watch has been criticized for its portrayal of Islam as a totalitarian political doctrine.[12] The Southern Poverty Law Center and Anti-Defamation League consider Jihad Watch an active hate group due to its "extreme hostility toward Muslims."[19] Guardian writer Brian Whitaker described Jihad Watch as a "notoriously Islamophobic website",[20] while other critics such as Dinesh D'Souza,[21] Karen Armstrong and Cathy Young, pointed to what they see as "deliberate mischaracterizations" of Islam and Muslims by Spencer as inherently violent and therefore prone to terrorism.[14][22]

Benazir Bhutto, the Pakistani Prime Minister, in her book Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West, wrote that Spencer uses Jihad Watch to spread misinformation and hatred of Islam. She added that he presents a skewed, one-sided, and inflammatory story that only helps to sow the seed of civilizational conflict.[23]

Abdel Bari Atwan, the editor-in-chief of the London-based pan-Arab newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi, wrote that "Most of the effective surveillance work tracking jihadi sites is being done not by the FBI or MI6, but by private groups. The best-known and most successful of those are [Internet] Haganah ... SITE [Institute] ... and Jihad Watch."[24]

The website was cited 64 times by Norwegian far-right terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, who committed the 2011 Norway attacks due to his belief that Muslim immigrants were a threat to Western culture.[25] Breivik later said that he was a neo-Nazi since the early 1990s, and only in later years disguised himself with and exploited counter-jihad writings.[26]

In 2017, Christine Douglass-Williams was terminated as a board member of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation for her writings on the blog.[27]

References

  1. ↑ Bettiza, Gregorio (2019). Finding Faith in Foreign Policy: Religion and American Diplomacy in a Postsecular World. Oxford University Press. p. 143. ISBN 978-0-19-094946-4. Retrieved 3 February 2021 – via Google Books.
  2. ↑ Ebner, Julia (30 September 2017). The Rage: The Vicious Circle of Islamist and Far-Right Extremism. Bloomsbury. p. 208. ISBN 978-1-78673-289-7. Retrieved 3 February 2021 – via Google Books.
  3. ↑ Khan, Saeed (9 August 2019). "How the largest American Muslim foundation was falsely demonised by white supremacists". The Parliament Magazine. Archived from the original on 8 June 2021. Retrieved 3 February 2021.
  4. ↑ Mulhall, Joe (20 December 2016). "The British Counter-Jihad Movement no longer really exists but its impact can still be felt" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 7 February 2021. Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  5. ↑ [1] [2] [3] ([4])
  6. ↑ Kumar, Deepa (1 January 2014). "Mediating Racism: The New McCarthyites and the Matrix of Islamophobia". Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication. Brill. 7 (1): 9–26. doi:10.1163/18739865-00701001. ISSN 1873-9865. Retrieved 3 February 2021.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Bail, Christopher (2 August 2016). Terrified: How Anti-Muslim Fringe Organizations Became Mainstream. Princeton University Press. p. 84. ISBN 9780691173634. Retrieved 21 April 2019.
  8. ↑ Gardell, Mattias (1 January 2014). "Crusader Dreams: Oslo 22/7, Islamophobia, and the Quest for a Monocultural Europe" (PDF). Terrorism and Political Violence. Taylor & Francis. 26 (1): 129–155. doi:10.1080/09546553.2014.849930. ISSN 0954-6553. S2CID 144489939. Archived (PDF) from the original on 21 April 2021. Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  9. ↑ Sidahmed, Abdel Salam (29 June 2010). "'Jihadiology' and the problem of reaching a contemporary understanding of Jihad". In Rippin, Andrew; Ismael, Tareq Y. (eds.). Islam in the Eyes of the West: Images and Realities in an Age of Terror (PDF). Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203854389. ISBN 978-1-136-99018-2. Archived (PDF) from the original on 8 June 2021. Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  10. ↑ Jamin, Jérôme (17 October 2014). "Cultural Marxism and the Radical Right". In Jackson, Paul; Shekhovtsov, Anton (eds.). The Post-War Anglo-American Far Right: A Special Relationship of Hate. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 96. ISBN 978-1-137-39619-8. Retrieved 3 February 2021.
  11. ↑ [6][7][8][9][10]
  12. 1 2 3 Kundnani, Arun (June 2012). "Blind Spot? Security Narratives and Far-Right Violence in Europe" (PDF). International Centre for Counter-terrorism. Archived (PDF) from the original on 10 July 2012. Retrieved 23 July 2012.
  13. 1 2
  14. 1 2 Armstrong, Karen (27 April 2007). "Balancing the Prophet". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 12 September 2007. Retrieved 3 February 2008.
  15. 1 2 3 Pertwee, Ed (10 December 2020). "Donald Trump, the anti-Muslim far right and the new conservative revolution". Ethnic and Racial Studies. 43 (16): 211–230. doi:10.1080/01419870.2020.1749688. S2CID 218843237. Among the [David Horowitz Freedom Center]'s many projects are Jihad Watch, the most popular counter-jihad blog; 'Discover the Networks', a database of the US Left; and FrontPage, an online magazine edited by Jamie Glazov, whose internet TV show, The Glazov Gang, broadcasts interviews with leading counter-jihad figures.
  16. 1 2 Barnard, Anne; Feuer, Alan (10 October 2010). "Outraged, And Outrageous". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 24 June 2017. Retrieved 17 February 2017.
  17. ↑ Oborne, Peter (7 July 2008). "The shameful Islamophobia at the heart of Britain's press". The Independent. Archived from the original on 8 June 2021. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
  18. 1 2 Russonello, Giovanni; Vogel, Kenneth P. (5 September 2010) [first published 4 September 2010]. "Latest mosque issue: The money trail". Politico.Com. Archived from the original on 8 June 2021. Retrieved 3 January 2020.
  19. 1 2 Angwin, Julia; Larson, Jeff; Varner, Madeleine; Kirchner, Lauren (19 August 2017). "Despite Disavowals, Leading Tech Companies Help Extremist Sites Monetize Hate". ProPublica. Archived from the original on 6 May 2021. Retrieved 3 January 2020.
  20. ↑ Whitaker, Brian (7 February 2006). "Drawn conclusions". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 8 June 2021. Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  21. ↑ D'Souza, Dinesh (2 March 2007). "Letting Bin Laden Define Islam". Archived from the original on 4 March 2007. Retrieved 3 February 2008.
  22. ↑ "The Jihad Against Muslims". 6 June 2006. Archived from the original on 13 February 2008. Retrieved 3 February 2008.
  23. ↑ Benazir Bhutto, Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West, Harper, 2008, pp. 245–6.
  24. ↑ Atwan, Abdel Bari (2008). The secret history of al Qaeda – Google Books. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520255616. Retrieved 1 November 2010.
  25. ↑ Shane, Scott (24 July 2011). "Killings in Norway Spotlight Anti-Muslim Thought in U.S." New York Times. Archived from the original on 8 June 2021. Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  26. ↑ "Breivik: - Jeg leste Hitlers Mein Kampf da jeg var 14 år". Nettavisen (in Norwegian). 16 March 2016.
  27. ↑ "Race relations board member says she's been fired over writings about Islam". CBC News. 21 December 2017.
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