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Type of site | Blog |
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| Available in | English |
| Owner | Robert Spencer |
| Created by | Robert Spencer and Hugh Fitzgerald |
| URL | jihadwatch |
| Registration | None |
| Launched | 23 September 2003 |
| Current status | Active |
| This article is part of a series on |
| Conservatism in the United States |
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Jihad Watch is an American far-right [4] Islamophobic [10] 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 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]
In 2017, Christine Douglass-Williams was terminated as a board member of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation for her writings on the blog. [25]
[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.
