TheZionist Occupation Government,Zionist Occupational Government, orZionist-Occupied Government (ZOG), sometimes also called theJewish Occupational Government (JOG), is anantisemiticconspiracy theory claiming thatJews secretlycontrol the government of the United States. More recent versions apply it to the governments of other countries.[1][2] ZOG is often directly personified as theAnti-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, particularlyChristian Identity activists, before being imported into Europe. The highly publicized criminal actions of the neo-Nazi groupthe Order resulted in the terminology rising in popularity among white supremacists.
The expression is used bywhite supremacist,white nationalist,far-right, or antisemitic groups in Europe[3] and the U.S.[4][5][6] Some contemporary militant, authoritarian, andtheocraticIslamist andIslamic extremist organizations, includingSalafi-jihadist groups, have also used the term "ZOG" in propaganda campaigns. The wordZionist in "Zionist Occupation Government" is used to equate being Jewish with the ideology of Zionism. The theory thus depicts Zionists as conspiring for Jews andIsrael tocontrol the world.[4]
The ZOG conspiracy theory is that Jews secretly control the government of the United States. Later versions apply it to other countries.[1][2][7] Kaplan defined it further as "a deeplyManichaean conceptualization of the federal government and of what is seen as its Jewish puppeteers", who are often directly personified as theAnti-Defamation League, due to its many conflicts with the neo-Nazi movement.[8][9] Believers in ZOG see it as a secret, all-powerful government entity, sometimes of the whole world.[8] Alternate names for it include Zionist Occupational Government,[10] Zionist-Occupied Government, and Jewish Occupational Government (JOG).[11][12]
In 2000, scholarJeffrey Kaplan called ZOG "at once the most caricatured and the most characteristic facet of the American radical right wing today".[8] He wrote that it was the reification of the neo-Nazi movement's "perception of unremitting persecution".[13] 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."[9]
The association of Jews with the control of economic forces is a modern resurgence of an oldstereotype, that of the "greedy Jewish merchant", present in the Christian world since theMiddle Ages.[14] The conspiracy theory illustrates a specifically Americanfar-rightagrarian 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.[15] ZOG is an evolution of early conspiracy theories of Jewish control of the world.[8]
Activists imagine a variety of plots related to the original conspiracy theory—for instance, that as many as 4,000 Jews were warned of theSeptember 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 theFederal Reserve.[14]
In late 19th-century France, the insinuation that Jews controlled theFrench government was commonplace in anti-republican discourse.[15] Early ideological influences on the conspiracy include the antisemiticThe Dearborn Independent and the forged tractThe Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.[16]
The origins of the ZOG idea specifically are connected to the U.S. civil rights landscape and particularly Jewish anti-hate activist groups.[8] In an effort to stop antisemites likeGerald L. K. Smith andGeorge Lincoln Rockwell (the leader of theAmerican Nazi Party) from getting attention and therefore more power, the Jewish watchdog organization theAmerican Jewish Congress (AJC) encouraged a "quarantine" of them in the media by asking Jewish groups and newspapers not to react to their provocations.[17] Kaplan identifies Rockwell's frustration with this policy and hislater 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.[17][18]
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 theAnti-Defamation League (ADL) 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.[19][17] 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".[20]
The specific term "Zionist Occupation Government" was coined by the Americanneo-Nazi Eric Thomson in a 1976 article titled "Welcome to ZOG-World". Thomson was allegedly a former agent for theCentral Intelligence Agency turned neo-Nazi activist.[21][22][23] The concept and terminology were developed and spread in the 1970s by American white supremacists, particularlyChristian Identity activists.[24][25] It was later imported into Europe.[24] The concept (though not the term) is a major theme in the 1978 bookThe Turner Diaries byWilliam Luther Pierce, founder of theNational Alliance, awhite nationalist organization.[15][26] Pierce himself later identified the U.S. government as "ZOG".[27]
The term only became popular following a 27 December 1984New York Times article about robberies committed inCalifornia andWashington by a white supremacist group calledthe Order. According to theTimes, the crimes "were conducted to raise money for a war upon the United States government, which the group calls 'ZOG', or Zionist Occupation Government."[15][26][23] Resultingly, the idea spread in usage among the far-right in the 1980s and 1990s.[23][28] It spread throughwhite power music in the U.S. and Europe, particularly Sweden.[28] Though the term initially referred to the U.S., European white nationalists were using it in reference to their governments by the late 1980s.[7]
The term appeared extensively inAryan Nations literature. In 1985, the ADL reported that Aryan Nations had set up an electronicbulletin board system, "Aryan Nation Liberty Net", to offer information about the locations ofCommunist Party USA offices and "ZOG informers".[29] 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 andruling-class Jewish families. It accused ZOG Jews of subverting the constitutional rule of law; responsibility for post-Civil WarReconstruction; subverting the monetary system with theFederal Reserve System; confiscating land and property; limiting freedom of speech, religion, and gun ownership; murdering, kidnapping, and imprisoning patriots; abdicating national sovereignty to theUnited 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.[15][30]
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".[31] Slovak politicianMarian Kotleba, whose party (People's Party Our Slovakia) won two seats in theEuropean Parliament in the2019 election,[32] claims that the "Z. O. G." controls Slovak politics.[33]
...the neo-Nazis have proclaimed themselves a white/Aryan resistance movement fighting the Zionist Occupation Government (ZOG) and racial traitors..
...vivid philosophy of White supremacy, including the belief that the United States is manipulated by foreign Jewish interests collectively known as the Zionist Occupation Government (ZOG). With this conspiracy theory, the strain is "explained" (e.g., the Jews are behind multicultural curricula), and the solution is presented: hate crimes and race war.
The Order, a faction of the Aryan Nations, seized national attention during the 1980s. The tightly organized racist and anti-Semitic group opposed the federal government, calling it the 'ZOG', or Zionist Occupation Government.
The importance of Christian Identity (CI) in the context of bioterrorism is that it has been openly embraced by certain U.S. right-wing 'militia' and terrorist cells whose members have expressed interest in acquiring or utilizing pathogens and toxic chemical agents... as weapons against their opponents, including representatives of the 'Zionist Occupation Government' (ZOG) that they feel is controlled by 'satanic' Jews.
Canadian White Nationalists use this term as well.
William Luther Pierce, author of the neofascist bestsellerTheTurner Diaries, for example, identifies the American state as a "Zionist Occupation Government.
In Kotleba's eyes, every political skirmish in Slovakia is a "very well prepared performance" directed by Z. O. G. (the "Zionist Occupation Government").
