Jihad Watch

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Jihad Watch
Jihad Watch logo.PNG
Type of site
Online journal
Available inEnglish
OwnerRobert B. Spencer
Created byRobert B. Spencer and Hugh Fitzgerald
RevenueDonations
Websitejihadwatch.org
Alexa rankIncrease 48,906 global; 14,743 US (May 2019)[1]
CommercialNo
Registration501(c)(3), non-profit organization
Launched23 September 2003
Current statusActive

Jihad Watch is an anti-Muslim conspiracy blog run by Robert B. Spencer and affiliated with the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

Organization[edit]

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 allegations of acts by non-Muslims in defence of the Muslim world.

Funding[edit]

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.[3] 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".[3] In 2015, Jihad Watch received approximately $100,000 in revenue, with three quarters of that revenue coming from donations.[4]

Content[edit]

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."[5] 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.[6]

Jihad Watch has widely been described as an anti-Muslim conspiracy blog.[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] Jihad Watch has been criticized for its portrayal of Islam as a totalitarian political doctrine.[13] Jihad Watch has been described by the Southern Poverty Law Center[18][4] and Anti-Defamation League[19] as trafficking in Islamophobic conspiracy theories. Guardian writer Brian Whitaker described Jihad Watch as a "notoriously Islamophobic website",[20] while other critics such as Dinesh D'Souza,[21] Karen Armstrong,[22] and Cathy Young,[23] 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,[24] and has said that the term "Islamophobe" is "a tool used by Islamic apologists to silence criticism."[24]The website is labelled "unreliable" by NewsGuard as of October 2019.[25]

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.[26] Spencer stated that the passage Bhutto cited was written by Ibn Warraq.[27]

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."[28]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Jihadwatch.org Site Info". Alexa Internet. Archived from the original on 4 May 2015. Retrieved 5 September 2015.
  2. ^ a b 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. ^ a b Russonello, Giovanni; Vogel, Kenneth P. (5 September 2010). "Latest mosque issue: The money trail". Politico.Com. Retrieved 3 January 2020.
  4. ^ a b 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.
  5. ^ "Jihad Watch". Jihad Watch. 28 March 2010. Archived from the original on 31 March 2010. Retrieved 1 April 2010.
  6. ^ a b 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)...
  7. ^ Rohlinger, Deana. "New Media and Society". NYU Press. p. 101. Retrieved 21 April 2019.
  8. ^ 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. Retrieved 22 December 2019. from xenophobic and conspiratorial sites, such as JihadWatch.org
  9. ^ Huang, Frankie. "China's Most Popular App Is Full of Hate". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 21 April 2019.
  10. ^ "Here Are The Hoaxes And Misinformation About The Notre Dame Fire". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved 16 April 2019.
  11. ^ "Donald Trump Picks Anti-Muslim Official For U.S. Ambassador To UN". HuffPost Brasil (in Portuguese). 7 December 2018. Retrieved 21 April 2019.
  12. ^ "FACT CHECK: Did a 'Muslima' Nurse Practitioner Decapitate Her Son Because of Her Religion?". Snopes.com. Retrieved 21 April 2019.
  13. ^ a b 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.
  14. ^ Esposito, John L. (2011). "Islamophobia and the Challenges of Pluralism in the 21st Century - Introduction" (PDF). Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 March 2012. Retrieved 27 August 2012.
  15. ^ Ismael, Tareq Y.; Rippin, Andrew, eds. (2010). Islam in the Eyes of the West: Images and Realities in an Age of Terror. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. p. 104. ISBN 978-0-415-56414-4. 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.
  16. ^ 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.
  17. ^ Topal, S. (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.
  18. ^ "Muslim Basher Robert Spencer Shows White Nationalist Colors". Archived from the original on 28 May 2015. Retrieved 16 April 2017.
  19. ^ "Stop Islamization of America (SIOA)". Archived from the original on 19 June 2016. Retrieved 16 April 2017.
  20. ^ Drawn conclusions, The Guardian, 7 February 2006.
  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. ^ "Balancing the Prophet". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 12 September 2007. Retrieved 3 February 2008.
  23. ^ "The Jihad Against Muslims". Archived from the original on 13 February 2008. Retrieved 3 February 2008.
  24. ^ a b "Wikipedia and Robert Spencer". Archived from the original on 19 May 2011. Retrieved 25 March 2008.
  25. ^ "Jihad Watch". NewsGuard.
  26. ^ Benazir Bhutto, Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West, Harper, 2008, pp. 245–6.
  27. ^ Spencer, Robert (19 March 2008). "Parting words from Benazir Bhutto". Archived from the original on 13 January 2015. Retrieved 22 December 2017.
  28. ^ Atwan, Abdel Bari (2008). The secret history of al Qaeda – Google Books. ISBN 9780520255616. Retrieved 1 November 2010.

External links[edit]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jihad_Watch&oldid=939263983"