Jihad Watch
American anti-Islam blog From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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]
 | |
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 |
Organization
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]
Funding
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]
Content and traffic
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]
Reception
Summarize
Perspective
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.[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]
See also
References
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