Robert Bruce Spencer (born February 27, 1962) is an American author and blogger and a key figure of the "counter-jihad" movement in the United States.[1] He appears frequently on Fox News[2] and has given seminars to various law enforcement units in the United States.[3]
Counter-jihad or counterjihad or counter-jihad movement is a self-titled political current loosely consisting of authors, bloggers, think tanks, street movements and campaign organisations all linked by a common belief that the Western world is being subjected to takeover by Muslims. Several academic accounts have presented conspiracy theory as a key component of the counter-jihad movement. On a day-to-day level, it seeks to generate outrage at perceived Muslim crimes.
The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States or America, is a country comprising 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico. The State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U.S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The extremely diverse geography, climate, and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.
Fox News is an American pay television news channel. It is owned by the Fox News Group, which itself was owned by News Corporation from 1996–2013, 21st Century Fox from 2013–2019, and Fox Corporation since 2019. The channel broadcasts primarily from studios at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in New York City. Fox News is provided in 86 countries or overseas territories worldwide, with international broadcasts featuring Fox Extra segments during ad breaks.
Spencer, a self-proclaimed expert on radical Islam,[4] has published a number of books on the subject including two New York Times bestsellers.[5] In 2003 he founded and has since directed Jihad Watch, a blog which he describes as containing "news of the international jihad, [and] commentary"[6] which is dedicated to "bringing public attention to the role that jihad theology and ideology plays in the modern world, and to correcting popular misconceptions about the role of jihad and religion in modern-day conflicts".[7]
Jihad Watch is an anti-Muslim conspiracy blog affiliated with the David Horowitz Freedom Center, run by blogger Robert Spencer. It has been described as one of the main homes of the Counter-jihad movement on the internet.
He has also co-founded the anti-Muslim group Stop Islamization of America (SIOA)[8] and the Freedom Defense Initiative with blogger Pamela Geller, with whom he also co-authored a book, The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America.
Stop Islamization of America (SIOA), also known as the American Freedom Defense Initiative, is an anti-Muslim, pro-Israel American 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.
Pamela Geller is an American political activist and commentator. She is known for her anti-Islamic writings, opposition to the proposed construction of an Islamic community center near the former site of the World Trade Center, and sponsorship of the "Draw the Prophet" cartoon contest in Garland, Texas. She describes her blogging and campaigns in the United States as being against what she terms "creeping Sharia" in the country. Some critics and commentators have described Geller as Islamophobic.
His viewpoints have been described as anti-Muslim.[9][10][11] Spencer describes himself as "the “good” kind of Islamophobe."[12] In 2013 the UK Home Office barred Spencer and Geller from travel to the UK for 3 to 5 years for "making statements that may foster hatred that might lead to inter-community violence".
Background
Spencer is a former member of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church.[13][14] In a 2006 interview, Spencer stated that his grandparents were forced to emigrate from an area that is now part of Turkey because they were Christians.[6] According to a 2010 interview in New York magazine, Spencer's father worked for the Voice of America during the Cold War, and in his younger days, Spencer himself worked at Revolution Books, a Maoist bookstore in New York City founded by Robert Avakian.[15]
The Melkite Greek Catholic Church is an Eastern Catholic Church in full communion with the Holy See as part of the worldwide Catholic Church. It is headed by Patriarch Youssef Absi, S.M.S.P., headquartered in Cathedral of Our Lady of the Dormition, Damascus, Syria. The Melkites, Byzantine Rite Catholics, trace their history to the early Christians of Antioch, formerly part of Syria and now in Turkey, of the 1st century AD, where Christianity was introduced by Saint Peter.
Christianity is an Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, as described in the New Testament. Its adherents, known as Christians, believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and savior of all people, whose coming as the Messiah was prophesied in the Old Testament.
New York is an American biweekly magazine concerned with life, culture, politics, and style generally, and with a particular emphasis on New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite, and established itself as a cradle of New Journalism. Over time, it became more national in scope, publishing many noteworthy articles on American culture by writers such as Tom Wolfe, Jimmy Breslin, Nora Ephron, John Heilemann, Frank Rich, and Rebecca Traister.
Spencer received an M.A. in 1986 in religious studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His masters thesis was on Catholic history.[16] He has said he has been studying Islamic theology, law, and history since 1980.[6][17] He worked in think tanks for more than 20 years,[15] and in 2002–2003 was an adjunct fellow with the Free Congress Foundation.[18] Spencer named Paul Weyrich, also a Melkite Catholic, as a mentor of his writings on Islam. Spencer writes, "Paul Weyrich taught me a great deal, by word and by example– about how to deal both personally and professionally with the slanders and smears that are a daily aspect of this work."[18]
Religious studies, also known as the study of religion or religiology, is an academic field devoted to research into religious beliefs, behaviors, and institutions. It describes, compares, interprets, and explains religion, emphasizing systematic, historically based, and cross-cultural perspectives.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), also known as UNC-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, or simply Carolina is a public research university in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. It is the flagship of the 17 campuses of the University of North Carolina system. After being chartered in 1789, the university first began enrolling students in 1795, which also allows it to be one of three schools to claim the title of the oldest public university in the United States. Among the claimants, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is the only one to have held classes and graduated students as a public university in the eighteenth century.
A think tank, think factory or policy institute is a research institute/center and organization which performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most policy institutes are non-profit organisations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada provide with tax exempt status. Other think tanks are funded by governments, advocacy groups, or corporations, and derive revenue from consulting or research work related to their projects.
Spencer does not believe that traditional Islam is "inherently terroristic" but says he can prove that "traditional Islam contains violent and supremacist elements", and that "its various schools unanimously teach warfare against and the subjugation of unbelievers".[20] However, he rejects the notion that all Muslims are necessarily violent people.[20] He has said that among moderate Muslims, "there are some who are genuinely trying to frame a theory and practice of Islam that will allow for peaceful coexistence with unbelievers as equals."[21]
On December 20, 2006, the government of Pakistan announced a ban on Spencer's book, The Truth About Muhammad, citing "objectionable material" as the cause.[27]
In 2009, Spencer was asked to participate in an information session about Islam and Muslims designed for ethnic and multicultural librarians entitled "Perspectives on Islam: Beyond the Stereotyping", at the 2009 annual meeting of the American Library Association, which was sponsored by the ALA's Ethnic & Multicultural Information Exchange Round Table (EMIERT). After objections were raised by ALA members and the general public, the three other panelists withdrew in protest and the session was ultimately canceled.[29]
During Operation Protective Edge, Spencer was accused of spreading an anti-Palestinian misinformation video, originally published by Pamela Geller, by inaccurately claiming a video of an Egyptian die-in protest from Egyptian newspaper El Badil was a video of Hamas faking the number of casualties killed by Israel. Robert Spencer wrote “as Muhammad said, ‘War is deceit.’ And so here is more ‘Palestinian’ victimhood propaganda unmasked. Not that the international media and the world ‘human rights community’ will take any notice. Video thanks to Pamela Geller.” After El Badil had the video removed from Geller's YouTube account due to copyright infringement, El Badil wrote that Spencer and Geller's inability to distinguish a die-in protest from an Islamic funeral either makes them "incompetent to speak on Islam or they are professional liars."[30][31]
In an October 2010 news article, an investigative report by The Tennessean described Spencer as one of several individuals who "... cash in on spreading hate and fear about Islam." Tennessean investigation concluded "IRS filings from 2008 show that Robert Spencer earned $132,537 from the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and Horowitz pocketed over $400,000 for himself in just one year".[32][33]
On May 1, 2017, Spencer spoke at the University of Buffalo. There he was shouted down and heckled.[37]
On May 3, 2017, Spencer spoke at Gettysburg College. 375 alumni urged the college president Janet Morgan Riggs to cancel the speech, but the event went on as planned.[38] Spencer said, "There is one kind of diversity that is not valued generally in an academic setting and that is intellectual diversity."[39]
On November 14, 2017, Spencer spoke at Stanford University. Many students walked out during the event.[40]
A letter from the UK Home Office stated that this decision is based on Spencer's statement that:
"It [Islam] is a religion or a belief system that mandates warfare against unbelievers for the purpose of establishing a societal model that is absolutely incompatible with Western society ... because of media and general government unwillingness to face the sources of Islamic terrorism these things remain largely unknown."[43]
The decision will stand for between three and five years. The ban followed a concerted campaign by the UK anti-extremism and civil rights organization Hope not Hate,[44] which said it had collected 26,000 signatures for a petition to the Home Secretary.[45] Spencer and Geller contested the ban, but in 2015 the British Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal, arguing that "this was a public order case where the police had advised that significant public disorder and serious violence might ensue from the proposed visit."[46][47]
The ban was criticised by Douglas Murray. He noted that Islamist hate preachers are still allowed to enter the UK.[48]
Eurabia is a political neologism, a portmanteau of Europe and Arabia, used to describe a conspiracy theory of globalist elements, allegedly led by French and Arab powers, to Islamise and Arabise Europe, thereby weakening its existing culture and undermining a previous alignment with the U.S. and Israel.
Bat Ye'or is the pen name of Gisèle Littman, an author of the history of religious minorities in the Muslim world and modern European politics. Ye'or has popularized the term dhimmitude in her books about the history of Middle Eastern Christians and Jews living under Islamic governments. Ye'or describes dhimmitude as the "specific social condition that resulted from jihad," and as the "state of fear and insecurity" of "infidels" who are required to "accept a condition of humiliation." She has also popularized the term Eurabia in her writings about modern Europe, in which she argues that Islam, anti-Americanism and antisemitism hold sway over European culture and politics as a result of collaboration between radical Arabs and Muslims on one hand, and fascists, socialists, Nazis, and antisemitic rulers of Europe on the other.
FrontPage Magazine is an online right-wing political website, edited by David Horowitz and published by the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
Criticism of Islam has existed since Islam's formative stages. Early written disapproval came from Christians and Jews as well as from some former Muslims such as Ibn al-Rawandi. Later the Muslim world itself suffered criticism. Western criticism has grown in the 21st century especially after the September 11 attacks and other terrorist incidents. As of 2014, about a quarter of the world's countries and territories (26%) had anti-blasphemy and anti-apostasy laws or policies, of which 13 nations, all of which were Muslim majority nations, had the death penalty for apostasy.
Wafa Sultan is a medical doctor who trained as a psychiatrist in Syria. She is a U.S. author and critic of Muslim society and Islam.
The David Horowitz Freedom Center, formerly the Center for the Study of Popular Culture (CSPC), is a conservative 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. It runs several websites and blogs, including FrontPage Magazine, Students for Academic Freedom and Jihad Watch. Both it and its Jihad Watch blog have been described as Islamophobic.
Faith Freedom International (FFI) is a website that is critical of Islam. FFI identifies itself as "a grassroots worldwide movement of ex-Muslims and all those who are concerned about the rise of the Islamic threat". According to the website, FFI was founded by an Iranian residing in Canada, known as Ali Sina. On the website, Ali Sina has issued a standing challenge that he will remove the FFI website if proven wrong on a number of issues.
Ali Sina is an Iranian-born Canadian activist and critic of Islam, who refers to himself as an ex-Muslim. He is the founder of Faith Freedom International, which he describes as a grassroots movement of ex-Muslims. Sina is a board member of Stop Islamization of Nations, an organization founded by Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer and Anders Gravers Pedersen.
Ahmadiyya is an Islamic revival or messianic movement founded in Punjab, British India, in the late 19th century. It originated with the life and teachings of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835–1908), who claimed to have been divinely appointed as both the promised Mahdi and Messiah expected by Muslims to appear towards the end times and bring about, by peaceful means, the final triumph of Islam; as well as to embody, in this capacity, the expected eschatological figure of other major religious traditions. Adherents of the Ahmadiyya—a term adopted expressly in reference to Muhammad's alternative name Aḥmad—are known as Ahmadi Muslims or simply Ahmadis.
Hope not Hate is an advocacy group based in the United Kingdom. It campaigns against racism and fascism, and seeks to "combine first class research with community organising and grassroots actions to defeat hate groups at elections and to build community resilience against extremism". It is a self-described non-partisan, non-sectarian third party organisation.
Mainstream Islamic law stipulates detailed regulations for the use of violence, including the use of violence within the family or household, the use of corporal and capital punishment, as well as how, when and against whom to wage war.
David Yerushalmi is an American lawyer and political activist who is the driving counsel behind the anti-sharia movement in the United States. Along with Robert Muise, he is co-founder and senior counsel of the American Freedom Law Center. He is also general counsel to the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., a national security think tank founded by Frank Gaffney.
This is a bibliography of literature treating the topic of criticism of Islam, sorted by source publication and the author's last name.
The Curtis Culwell Center attack was carried out by two Islamic extremists from Arizona who attacked officers with gunfire at the entrance to an exhibit featuring cartoon images of Muhammad at the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas on May 3, 2015. The attackers shot an unarmed Garland Independent School District (GISD) security officer in the ankle. Shortly after opening fire, both attackers were shot and killed by an off-duty Garland police officer.
↑ Deland, Mats (2014). In the Tracks of Breivik: Far Right Networks in Northern and Eastern Europe. Berlin Wien: Lit Verlag. p.162. ISBN978-3-643-90542-0.
↑ Steinback, Robert (Summer 2011). "Jihad Against Islam". Intelligence Report, Issue #142. Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on 2012-01-19. Retrieved June 27, 2011.
↑ Pamela Geller is transmitting hate against Palestinians by spreading misinformation, El Badil, (2014). Elbadil.comArchived 2014-10-29 at the Wayback Machine
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