 | |
Type of site | Blog |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Owner | Robert Spencer |
| Created by | Robert Spencer and Hugh Fitzgerald |
| URL | jihadwatch |
| Registration | None |
| Launched | 23 September 2003 |
| Current status | Active |
Jihad Watch is an American far-right [4] Islamophobic [10] conspiracy blog operated by Robert Spencer. [6] [11] [12] [13] A project of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, Jihad Watch is the most popular blog within the counter-jihad movement. [14]
The site features commentary by multiple editors, and its most frequent editor is Robert Spencer. [15] It is a project of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. [14] Dhimmi Watch was a blog on the Jihad Watch site, also maintained by Spencer, focusing on alleged outrages by Muslims. [16]
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, [15] and a variety of individuals and foundations, like Bradley Foundation and Joyce Chernick, wife of Aubrey Chernick. [17] 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". [17] In 2015, Jihad Watch received approximately $100,000 in revenue, with three quarters of that revenue coming from donations. [18]
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. [6] It is the most popular counter-jihad blog. [14]
| Part of a series on |
| Islamophobia |
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Jihad Watch has widely been described as an anti-Muslim conspiracy blog. [6] [11] [12] Jihad Watch has been criticized for its portrayal of Islam as a totalitarian political doctrine. [11] The Southern Poverty Law Center and Anti-Defamation League consider Jihad Watch an active hate group due to its "extreme hostility toward Muslims." [18] Guardian writer Brian Whitaker described Jihad Watch as a "notoriously Islamophobic website", [19] while other critics such as Dinesh D'Souza, [20] 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. [13] [21]
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. [22]
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." [23]
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. [24] 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. [25]
In 2017, Christine Douglass-Williams was terminated as a board member of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation for her writings on the blog. [26]
"Eurabia" is a far-right, anti-Muslim conspiracy theory that posits that globalist entities, led by French and Arab powers, aim to Islamize and Arabize Europe, thereby weakening its existing culture and undermining its previous alliances with the United States and Israel.
Gisèle Littman, better known by her pen name Bat Ye'or, is an Egyptian-born British-French author, who promotes the Eurabia conspiracy theory in her writings about modern Europe, in which she argues that Islam, anti-Americanism and antisemitism hold sway over European culture and politics.
Robert Bruce Spencer is an American anti-Muslim author and blogger, and one of the key figures of the counter-jihad movement. His published books include The New York Times bestsellers.
FrontPage Magazine, also known as FrontPageMag.com, is an American right-wing, anti-Islam political website edited by David Horowitz and published by the David Horowitz Freedom Center. The site has also been described by scholars and writers as far-right and Islamophobic.
The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion is a biography by American anti-Muslim author Robert B. Spencer about the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Written from a critical perspective towards its subject, this book examines the life of Muhammad in ten chapters based on the sources provided by his early biographers, together with the Quran and the hadith, while also challenging their historical authenticity.
The David Horowitz Freedom Center, formerly the Center for the Study of Popular Culture (CSPC), is a conservative anti-Islam foundation founded in 1988 by political activist David Horowitz and his long-time collaborator Peter Collier. It was established with funding from groups including the John M. Olin Foundation, the Bradley Foundation and the Scaife Foundation.
The Brussels Journal is a conservative blog, founded by the Flemish journalist Paul Beliën. It is consistently named as one of the counter-jihad movement's main channels. It was founded in 2005, and has both an English language section with various international contributions, and a Dutch section.
Peder Are Nøstvold Jensen is a Norwegian far-right counter-jihad blogger who writes under the pseudonym Fjordman. Jensen wrote anonymously as Fjordman starting in 2005, until he disclosed his identity in 2011. He has been active in the counter-jihad movement, which argues that multiculturalism, particularly Muslim mass immigration, poses an existential threat to Western civilization. He has promoted this belief in a self-published book titled Defeating Eurabia, and stated that "Islam, and all those who practice it, must be totally and physically removed from the entire Western world".
Ali Sina is the pseudonym of an Iranian-born Canadian ex-Muslim activist and critic of Islam. Sina is the founder of the anti-Muslim website WikiIslam and maintains a number of websites promoting what he refers to as "the truth" about Islam. He is associated with the counter-jihad movement.
Stop Islamization of America (SIOA), also known as the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), is an anti-Muslim,> pro-Israel American counter-jihad organization known primarily for its controversial, Islamophobic advertising campaigns. The group has been described as extremist and far-right.< The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) lists SIOA as an anti-Muslim hate group.
Hope not Hate is an advocacy group based in the United Kingdom which campaigns against racism and fascism. It has also mounted campaigns against Islamic extremism and antisemitism. It is self-described as a "non-partisan, non-sectarian organisation." The group was founded in 2004 by Nick Lowles, a former editor of the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight. It is backed by various politicians and celebrities, and it has also been backed by several trade unions.
Document.no is a Norwegian far-right anti-immigration online newspaper. Academics have identified Document.no as an anti-Muslim website permeated by the Eurabia conspiracy theory. The website received global media attention in connection with the 2011 Norway attacks due to its association with perpetrator Anders Behring Breivik, a former comment section poster on the website.
Pamela Geller is an American anti-Muslim, far-right political activist, blogger and commentator. Geller promoted birther conspiracy theories about President Barack Obama, saying that he was born in Kenya and that he is a Muslim. She has denied genocides where Muslims were victims, including the Bosnian genocide and the Rohingya genocide.
Counter-jihad is a self-titled political current loosely consisting of authors, bloggers, think tanks, street movements and so on linked by beliefs that view Islam not as a religion but as an ideology that constitutes an existential threat to Western civilization. Consequently, counter-jihadists consider all Muslims as a potential threat, especially when they are already living within Western boundaries. Western Muslims accordingly are portrayed as a "fifth column", collectively seeking to destabilize Western nations' identity and values for the benefit of an international Islamic movement intent on the establishment of a caliphate in Western countries. The counter-jihad movement has been variously described as anti-Islamic, Islamophobic, inciting hatred against Muslims, and far-right. Influential figures in the movement include the bloggers Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer in the US, and Geert Wilders and Tommy Robinson in Europe.
Politically Incorrect is a mainly German-language counter-jihad political blog which focuses on topics related to immigration, multiculturalism, and Islam in Germany and Western societies. A condensed version of the weblog is available in English. The blog is one of the oldest German far-right sites, which has been spreading hate speech against Muslims and migrants in Germany. The content is amplifying the fear of Islam.
The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) is a non-profit research group founded by Steven Emerson in 1995. IPT has been called a prominent part of the "Islamophobia network" within the United States and a "leading source of anti-Muslim racism" and noted for its record of selective reporting and poor scholarship.
Gates of Vienna is a far-right blog established in 2004 by Edward S. May and his wife. The website has featured the writings of international hardline anti-Muslim writers such as Fjordman and Paul Weston, and "is a central player in the counter-jihad movement within the United States and across Europe".
The New English Review is an online monthly magazine of cultural criticism, published from Nashville, Tennessee, since February 2006. Scholars note the magazine to have platformed a range of far-right Islamophobic discourse including conspiracy theories. An eponymous press is run by the same publisher.
The Citizens' Movement Pax Europa is a German counter-jihad group that was formed in 2008 from the merger of two previous groups, the Federal Association of Citizens' Movements formed in 2003, and Pax Europa formed in 2006.
The International Civil Liberties Alliance (ICLA) is an international counter-jihad organization that was originally founded in 2006, and which has spanned over twenty countries. Central to the organization has been Edward S. May of the Gates of Vienna blog, Alain Wagner and Christine Brim.
[Jihad Watch] can also be seen as a type of hub for the expression of anti-Muslim attitudes
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.