Zionist Occupation Government conspiracy theory
The Zionist Occupation Government, Zionist Occupational Government, or Zionist-Occupied Government, sometimes also called the Jewish Occupational Government, is an antisemitic conspiracy theory claiming that Jews secretly control the government of the United States. More recent versions apply it to the governments of other countries. ZOG is often directly personified as the Anti-Defamation League.
The concept of the "Zionist Occupation Government" and the acronym "ZOG" were coined in a 1976 article by the neo-Nazi activist Eric Thomson. The concept was further developed and spread in the 1970s by American white supremacists, particularly Christian Identity activists, before being imported into Europe. The highly publicized criminal actions of the neo-Nazi group the Order resulted in the terminology rising in popularity among white supremacists.
The expression is used by white supremacist, white nationalist, far-right, or antisemitic groups in Europe and the U.S. Some contemporary militant, authoritarian, and theocratic Islamist and Islamic extremist organizations, including Salafi-jihadist groups, have also used the term "ZOG" in propaganda campaigns. The word Zionist in "Zionist Occupation Government" is used to equate being Jewish with the ideology of Zionism. The theory thus depicts Zionists as conspiring for Jews and Israel to control the world.
Conspiracy
The ZOG conspiracy theory is that Jews secretly control the government of the United States. Later versions apply it to other countries. Kaplan defined it further as "a deeply Manichaean conceptualization of the federal government and of what is seen as its Jewish puppeteers", who are often directly personified as the Anti-Defamation League, due to its many conflicts with the neo-Nazi movement. Believers in ZOG see it as a secret, all-powerful government entity, sometimes of the whole world. Alternate names for it include Zionist Occupational Government, Zionist-Occupied Government, and Jewish Occupational Government.In 2000, scholar Jeffrey Kaplan called ZOG "at once the most caricatured and the most characteristic facet of the American radical right wing today". He wrote that it was the reification of the neo-Nazi movement's "perception of unremitting persecution". He described it as emphasizing the neo-Nazi movement's "feeling of helplessness that is reflected in the ZOG discourse—a vision of a movement that sees itself as relentlessly persecuted by the inextricable forces of the state and the Jews, as personified in particular by the ADL."
The association of Jews with the control of economic forces is a modern resurgence of an old stereotype, that of the "greedy Jewish merchant", present in the Christian world since the Middle Ages. The conspiracy theory illustrates a specifically American far-right agrarian preoccupation, namely the possibility of extinction allegedly faced by the rural world, seen as the backbone of America, a danger caused by a remote, centralized, power-hungry metropolitan elite corrupted by "alien" influences. ZOG is an evolution of early conspiracy theories of Jewish control of the world.
Activists imagine a variety of plots related to the original conspiracy theory—for instance, that as many as 4,000 Jews were warned of the September 11 attacks. Believers also claim that ZOG-like forces control U.S. foreign policy. Most ZOG theories involve the idea of Jewish power over finance or banking, such as control of the Federal Reserve.
History
Background
In late 19th-century France, the insinuation that Jews controlled the French government was commonplace in anti-republican discourse. Early ideological influences on the conspiracy include the antisemitic The Dearborn Independent and the forged tract The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.The origins of the ZOG idea specifically are connected to the U.S. civil rights landscape and particularly Jewish anti-hate activist groups. In an effort to stop antisemites like Gerald L. K. Smith and George Lincoln Rockwell from getting attention and therefore more power, the Jewish watchdog organization the American Jewish Congress encouraged a "quarantine" of them in the media by asking Jewish groups and newspapers not to react to their provocations. Kaplan identifies Rockwell's frustration with this policy and his later assassination as the origin of the ZOG idea, which served to reinforce his followers' belief in a Jewish conspiracy, as they considered the policy evidence of collusion between these groups and the government.
After Rockwell's assassination, his party ceased to be perceived as a real threat to the Jewish community, and it devolved into schismatic factions. The AJC was meanwhile largely supplanted by the Anti-Defamation League as the most prominent Jewish watchdog group. Antisemitism had declined in the U.S. and neo-Nazi movements were struggling to remain relevant, but in its opposition to the American neo-Nazi movement the ADL was far more aggressive than either the U.S. government or the AJC. It regularly engaged in dubiously legal and outright illegal activities in order to surveil and counter the neo-Nazi movement. Kaplan attributes the prevalence of the ZOG idea among neo-Nazis to their resulting belief that "the ADL was an omnipresent—and, indeed, omnipotent—presence".
Coinage
The specific term "Zionist Occupation Government" was coined by the American neo-Nazi Eric Thomson in a 1976 article titled "Welcome to ZOG-World". Thomson was allegedly a former agent for the Central Intelligence Agency turned neo-Nazi activist. The concept and terminology were developed and spread in the 1970s by American white supremacists, particularly Christian Identity activists. It was later imported into Europe. The concept is a major theme in the 1978 book The Turner Diaries by William Luther Pierce, founder of the National Alliance, a white nationalist organization. Pierce himself later identified the U.S. government as "ZOG".The term only became popular following a 27 December 1984 New York Times article about robberies committed in California and Washington by a white supremacist group called the Order. According to the Times, the crimes "were conducted to raise money for a war upon the United States government, which the group calls 'ZOG', or Zionist Occupation Government." Resultingly, the idea spread in usage among the far-right in the 1980s and 1990s. It spread through white power music in the U.S. and Europe, particularly Sweden. Though the term initially referred to the U.S., European white nationalists were using it in reference to their governments by the late 1980s.
Usage
The term appeared extensively in Aryan Nations literature. In 1985, the ADL reported that Aryan Nations had set up an electronic bulletin board system, "Aryan Nation Liberty Net", to offer information about the locations of Communist Party USA offices and "ZOG informers". In 1996, Aryan Nations posted on its website an "Aryan Declaration of Independence" saying that "the history of the present Zionist Occupied Government of the United States of America is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations having a direct object—the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states." Claiming that "the eradication of the White race and its culture" is "one of its foremost purposes", the declaration said ZOG relinquished government powers to private corporations, white traitors and ruling-class Jewish families. It accused ZOG Jews of subverting the constitutional rule of law; responsibility for post-Civil War Reconstruction; subverting the monetary system with the Federal Reserve System; confiscating land and property; limiting freedom of speech, religion, and gun ownership; murdering, kidnapping, and imprisoning patriots; abdicating national sovereignty to the United Nations; political repression; wasteful bureaucracy; loosening restrictions on immigration and drug trafficking; raising taxes; polluting the environment; commandeering the military, mercenaries and police; denying Aryan cultural heritage; and inciting immigrant insurrections.Since 1996, the term has spread in usage. It is now popular with many other antisemitic organizations. Swedish Neo-Nazis say that Jews—in what they call the Swedish Zionist occupied government—are importing immigrants to "dilute the blood of the white race". Slovak politician Marian Kotleba, whose party won two seats in the European Parliament in the 2019 election, claims that the "Z. O. G." controls Slovak politics.