Jihad Watch
Blog
LanguageEnglish
RegistrationNone
OwnerRobert Spencer
AuthorRobert Spencer and Hugh Fitzgerald
Launch date23 September 2003
Current statusActive

Jihad Watch is an American far-right[1] Islamophobic[2] blog operated by Robert Spencer.[3][4][5][6] A project of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, Jihad Watch is the most popular blog within the counter-jihad movement.[7]

Organization

The site features commentary by multiple editors, and its most frequent editor is Robert Spencer.[8] It is a project of the David Horowitz Freedom Center.[7] Dhimmi Watch was a blog on the Jihad Watch site, also maintained by Spencer, focusing on alleged outrages by Muslims.[9]

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,[8] and a variety of individuals and foundations, like Bradley Foundation and Joyce Chernick, wife of Aubrey Chernick.[10] 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".[10] In 2015, Jihad Watch received approximately $100,000 in revenue, with three quarters of that revenue coming from donations.[11]

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.[3] It is the most popular counter-jihad blog.[7]

Reception

Jihad Watch has widely been described as an anti-Muslim blog.[3][4][5] Jihad Watch has been criticized for its portrayal of Islam as a totalitarian political doctrine.[4] The Southern Poverty Law Center and Anti-Defamation League consider Jihad Watch an active hate group due to its "extreme hostility toward Muslims."[11] Guardian writer Brian Whitaker described Jihad Watch as a "notoriously Islamophobic website",[12] while other critics such as Dinesh D'Souza,[13] 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.[6][14]

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.[15]

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."[16]

The website was cited 64 times by Norwegian far-right terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, who committed the 2011 Norway attacks.[17]

In 2017, Christine Douglass-Williams was terminated as a board member of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation for her writings on the blog.[18]

See also

References

  1. ^ [19][20][21]
  2. ^ [22][3][23][24][25]
  3. ^ Bail, Christopher (2 August 2016). Terrified: How Anti-Muslim Fringe Organizations Became Mainstream. Princeton University Press. p. 84. ISBN 9780691173634. Retrieved 21 April 2019.
  4. ^ Kundnani, Arun (June 2012). "Blind Spot? Security Narratives and Far-Right Violence in Europe". International Centre for Counter-terrorism. Archived 10 July 2012 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 23 July 2012.
  5. ^ * Rohlinger, Deana. "New Media and Society". NYU Press. p. 101. Retrieved 21 April 2019. * Herndon, Astead W. (20 June 2019). "'These People Aren't Coming From Norway': Refugees in a Minnesota City Face a Backlash". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived 16 July 2019 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 22 December 2019. * Huang, Frankie (27 November 2018). "China's Most Popular App Is Full of Hate". Foreign Policy. Archived 27 November 2018 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 21 April 2019. * Lytvynenko, Jane & Silverman, Craig (16 April 2019). "Here Are The Hoaxes And Misinformation About The Notre Dame Fire". BuzzFeed News. Archived 17 April 2019 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 16 April 2019. * Palma, Bethania (6 April 2018). "FACT CHECK: Did a 'Muslima' Nurse Practitioner Decapitate Her Son Because of Her Religion?". Snopes. Archived 8 June 2021 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 8 June 2021. * Esposito, John L. (2011). "Islamophobia and the Challenges of Pluralism in the 21st Century - Introduction". Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University. Archived from the original on 24 March 2012. Retrieved 27 August 2012. * Islam in the Eyes of the West: Images and Realities in an Age of Terror. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. 2010. p. 104. ISBN 978-0-415-56414-4. Archived 8 June 2021 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 8 June 2021. cited from Webb, E. (2012). "Review of Tareq Y. Ismael & Andrew Rippin (eds.), Islam in the Eyes of the West: Images and Realities in an Age of Terror". Contemporary Islam. 7 (3): 413–420. doi:10.1007/s11562-012-0196-9. S2CID 140511975 * Varisco, D. M. (2009). "Muslims and the media in the blogosphere". Contemporary Islam. 4: 157–177. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.465.1191. doi:10.1007/s11562-009-0106-y. S2CID 143792038. Archived 8 June 2021 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 8 June 2021. * Topal, Semiha (2011). "Everybody Wants Secularism—But Which One? Contesting Definitions of Secularism in Contemporary Turkey". International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society. 25 (1–3): 1–3. doi:10.1007/s10767-011-9114-z. S2CID 144506792 * Larsson, Göran (2014). "Islamophobia or Legitimate Concern? Contrasting Official and Populist Understanding of Opposition to Muslims". In the Tracks of Breivik: Far Right Networks in Northern and Eastern Europe. Mays, Christin; Deland, Mats; Minkenberg, Michael (eds.). Vienna: Lit Verlag. pp. 155–66. ISBN 9783643905420. OCLC 881140905 "[Jihad Watch] can also be seen as a type of hub for the expression of anti-Muslim attitudes"
  6. ^ Armstrong, Karen (27 April 2007). "Balancing the Prophet". Financial Times. Archived 12 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 3 February 2008.
  7. ^ Pertwee, Ed (2020-12-10). "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.
  8. ^ Barnard, Anne & Feuer, Alan (10 October 2010). "Outraged, And Outrageous". The New York Times. Archived 24 June 2017 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 17 February 2017.
  9. ^ Oborne, Peter (7 July 2008). "The shameful Islamophobia at the heart of Britain's press". The Independent. Archived 8 June 2021 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
  10. ^ Russonello, Giovanni & Vogel, Kenneth P. (5 September 2010 [first published 4 September 2010]). "Latest mosque issue: The money trail". Politico.Com. Archived 8 June 2021 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 3 January 2020.
  11. ^ Angwin, Julia; Larson, Jeff; Varner, Madeleine; Kirchner, Lauren (19 August 2017). "Despite Disavowals, Leading Tech Companies Help Extremist Sites Monetize Hate". ProPublica. Archived 6 May 2021 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 3 January 2020.
  12. ^ Whitaker, Brian (7 February 2006). "Drawn conclusions". The Guardian. Archived 8 June 2021 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  13. ^ D'Souza, Dinesh (2 March 2007). "Letting Bin Laden Define Islam". Archived from the original on 4 March 2007. Retrieved 3 February 2008.
  14. ^ "The Jihad Against Muslims". 6 June 2006. Archived 13 February 2008 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 3 February 2008.
  15. ^ Benazir Bhutto, Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West, Harper, 2008, pp. 245–6.
  16. ^ Atwan, Abdel Bari (2008). The secret history of al Qaeda – Google Books. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520255616. Retrieved 1 November 2010.
  17. ^ Shane, Scott (24 July 2011). "Killings in Norway Spotlight Anti-Muslim Thought in U.S.". New York Times. Archived 8 June 2021 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  18. ^ "Race relations board member says she's been fired over writings about Islam". CBC News. December 21, 2017.
  19. ^ 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
  20. ^ 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
  21. ^ Khan, Saeed (9 August 2019). "How the largest American Muslim foundation was falsely demonised by white supremacists". The Parliament Magazine. Archived 8 June 2021 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 3 February 2021.
  22. ^ Kumar, Deepa (1 January 2014). "Mediating Racism: The New McCarthyites and the Matrix of Islamophobia". Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication. 7 (1): 9–26. Brill. doi:10.1163/18739865-00701001. ISSN 1873-9865. Retrieved 3 February 2021.
  23. ^ Gardell, Mattias (1 January 2014). "Crusader Dreams: Oslo 22/7, Islamophobia, and the Quest for a Monocultural Europe". Terrorism and Political Violence. 26 (1): 129–155. Taylor & Francis. doi:10.1080/09546553.2014.849930. ISSN 0954-6553. S2CID 144489939. Archived 21 April 2021 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  24. ^ Sidahmed, Abdel Salam (June 29, 2010). "'Jihadiology' and the problem of reaching a contemporary understanding of Jihad". Islam in the Eyes of the West: Images and Realities in an Age of Terror. Ismael, Tareq Y. (ed.). Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203854389. ISBN 978-1-136-99018-2. Archived 8 June 2021 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  25. ^ Jamin, Jérôme (October 17, 2014). "Cultural Marxism and the Radical Right". 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.