Type of site Online Journal Owner Robert Spencer Website jihadwatch.org | Revenue Donations | |
Created by Robert Spencer and Hugh Fitzgerald | ||
Jihad Watch is a 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.
Contents
According to the website, a theology of violent jihad, which denies non-Muslims and women equality, human rights, and dignity has been present throughout the history of Islam. 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."
It has been repeatedly criticised by numerous academics who believe that it promotes an Islamophobic worldview and conspiracy theories.
Organization
The site features commentary by multiple editors, although its most notable and frequent publisher of content is Robert Spencer. It has been affiliated with the David Horowitz Freedom Center, as a subsidiary project. 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.
Legal actions have been proposed against the site based on allegations of hate speech; however most of these actions have proven to be unsuccessful.
Funding
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, and a variety of individuals and foundations, like Bradley Foundation and Joyce Chernick, wife of Aubrey Chernick.
Influence and stances
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 Haganah ... SITE ... and Jihad Watch.
Jihad Watch (or Spencer, as director of Jihad Watch) has been quoted in, among other publications, The New York Times, The New York Daily News, The Christian Science Monitor, USA Today, The Daily Mail, and the Toronto Sun. He is a frequent guest on news channels such as CNN and Fox News.
Articles posted to Dhimmi Watch were archived by several news-gathering agencies and advocacy groups tracking these issues. As of March 2009, Dhimmi Watch was merged into Jihad Watch.
Jihad Watch said that the English Defence League (EDL) "deserve the support of all free people" and described its opponents in Unite Against Fascism as "fascist." Spencer has withdrawn his support as of June 2011. Arun Kundnani, research fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, groups Jihad Watch with other counterjihad blogs and calls them "paranoid conspiracy theorists", strongly accusing them of providing a false worldview which he writes has served as legitimisation of violence for far-right groups, such as the EDL.
Funding
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".
Criticism
Jihad Watch has been criticized for its portrayal of Islam as a totalitarian political doctrine, and as such has been accused of Islamophobia.
The Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) called Jihad Watch an "Internet hate site" and said it is "notorious for its depiction of Islam as an inherently violent faith that is a threat to world peace." Guardian writer Brian Whitaker described Jihad Watch as a "notoriously Islamophobic website", while other critics such as Dinesh D'Souza, 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. Spencer has denied such criticism.
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.
Robert Spencer has been described by some civil rights organizations including the Southern Poverty Law Center and Anti-Defamation League as a “hate group leader.”
Response to criticism
Spencer has responded to accusations that Jihad Watch is Islamophobic by saying that the term "Islamophobe" is "a tool used by Islamic apologists to silence criticism." He says that his work is
"...dedicated to identifying the causes of jihad terrorism, which of course lead straight back into the Islamic texts. I have therefore called for reform of those texts... I have dedicated Jihad Watch to defending equality of rights and freedom of conscience for all people. That's Islamophobic? Then is the fault in the phobe, or in the Islam?"