Jihad Watch

Jihad Watch is a blog run by Robert B. Spencer that has been described as an anti-Muslim conspiracy website. It is affiliated with the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

Jihad Watch
Type of site
Blog
Available inEnglish
OwnerRobert B. Spencer
Created byRobert B. Spencer and Hugh Fitzgerald
RevenueDonations
URLjihadwatch.org
Alexa rank 48,906 global; 14,743 US (May 2019)[1]
CommercialNo
Registration501(c)(3), non-profit organization
Launched23 September 2003
Current statusActive
Part of a series on
Islamophobia

Organization

The site features commentary by multiple editors, and its most frequent editor is Robert B. Spencer. It has been affiliated with the David Horowitz Freedom Center.[2] Dhimmi Watch was a blog on the Jihad Watch site, also maintained by Spencer, focusing on alleged outrages by Muslims.[3]

Funding

The Horowitz Freedom Center has paid Spencer, as Jihad Watch's director, a $132,000 salary (2010). Jihad Watch has also received funding from donors supporting the Israeli right,[2] and a variety of individuals and foundations, like Bradley Foundation and Joyce Chernick, wife of Aubrey Chernick.[4] 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".[4] In 2015, Jihad Watch received approximately $100,000 in revenue, with three quarters of that revenue coming from donations.[5]

Content

Jihad Watch says that it is "dedicated to bringing public attention to the role that jihad theology and ideology plays in the modern world, and to correct popular misconceptions about the role of jihad and religion in modern-day conflicts."[6] 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, and more than six thousand other sites link to it.[7]

Jihad Watch has widely been described as an anti-Muslim conspiracy blog.[7][8][9] Jihad Watch has been criticized for its portrayal of Islam as a totalitarian political doctrine.[8] Jihad Watch has been described by the Southern Poverty Law Center[10][5] and Anti-Defamation League[11] as trafficking in Islamophobic conspiracy theories. Guardian writer Brian Whitaker described Jihad Watch as a "notoriously Islamophobic website",[12] while other critics such as Dinesh D'Souza,[13] Karen Armstrong,[14] and Cathy Young,[15] pointed to what they see as "deliberate mischaracterizations" of Islam and Muslims by Spencer as inherently violent and therefore prone to terrorism. Spencer has denied such criticism,[16] and has said that the term "Islamophobe" is "a tool used by Islamic apologists to silence criticism."[16]The website is labelled "unreliable" by NewsGuard as of October 2019.[17]

Benazir Bhutto, the late 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.[18] Spencer stated that the passage Bhutto cited was written by Ibn Warraq.[19]

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."[20]

See also

References
  1. "Jihadwatch.org Site Info". Alexa Internet. Archived from the original on 4 May 2015. Retrieved 5 September 2015.
  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.
  3. "The shameful Islamophobia at the heart of Britain's press". The Independent. 7 July 2008. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
  4. Russonello, Giovanni; Vogel, Kenneth P. (5 September 2010). "Latest mosque issue: The money trail". Politico.Com. Retrieved 3 January 2020.
  5. Angwin, Julia; Larson, Jeff; Varner, Madeleine; Kirchner, Lauren (19 August 2017). "Despite Disavowals, Leading Tech Companies Help Extremist Sites Monetize Hate". ProPublica. Retrieved 3 January 2020.
  6. "Jihad Watch". Jihad Watch. 28 March 2010. Archived from the original on 31 March 2010. Retrieved 1 April 2010.
  7. Bail, Christopher. "Terrified: How Anti-Muslim Fringe Organizations Became Mainstream". Princeton University Press. p. 84. Retrieved 21 April 2019. The mainstream of anti-Muslim organizations coincided with the rise of internet as primary source of information for most Americans. These organizations developed considerable Internet infrastructure such as JihadWatch.org. The David Horowitz Freedom Center(DHFC)...
  8. 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.
  10. "Muslim Basher Robert Spencer Shows White Nationalist Colors". Archived from the original on 28 May 2015. Retrieved 16 April 2017.
  11. "Stop Islamization of America (SIOA)". Archived from the original on 19 June 2016. Retrieved 16 April 2017.
  12. Drawn conclusions, The Guardian, 7 February 2006.
  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. "Balancing the Prophet". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 12 September 2007. Retrieved 3 February 2008.
  15. "The Jihad Against Muslims". Archived from the original on 13 February 2008. Retrieved 3 February 2008.
  16. "Wikipedia and Robert Spencer". Archived from the original on 19 May 2011. Retrieved 25 March 2008.
  17. "Jihad Watch". NewsGuard.
  18. Benazir Bhutto, Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West, Harper, 2008, pp. 245–6.
  19. Spencer, Robert (19 March 2008). "Parting words from Benazir Bhutto". Archived from the original on 13 January 2015. Retrieved 22 December 2017.
  20. Atwan, Abdel Bari (2008). The secret history of al Qaeda – Google Books. ISBN 9780520255616. Retrieved 1 November 2010.
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