TheZionist Occupation Government,Zionist Occupational Government orZionist-Occupied Government (ZOG), sometimes also called theJewish Occupational Government (JOG), is anantisemiticconspiracy theory claiming thatJews secretlycontrol the governments ofWestern states.[1][2] It is a contemporary variation on the centuries-old belief in aninternational Jewish conspiracy. According to believers, a secretZionist organization actively controls internationalbanks, and through themgovernments, to conspire againstwhite,Christian, orIslamic interests.[3]
The expression is used bywhite supremacist,white nationalist,far-right, or antisemitic groups in Europe[4] and the United States.[5][6][7] Additionally, some contemporary militant, authoritarian, andtheocraticIslamist andIslamic extremist organizations, includingSalafi-jihadistterrorist cells, have used the term "ZOG" in propaganda campaigns. The wordZionist in "Zionist Occupation Government" is used to equate being Jewish with the ideology of Zionism. As such, Zionists are depicted by the theory as conspiring for Jews andIsrael tocontrol the world.[5]
ScholarJeffrey Kaplan described the notion of ZOG in 2000 as "at once the most caricatured and the most characteristic facet of the American radical right wing today."[8] The belief of ZOG is oneJews secretlycontrol the governments ofWestern states.[1][2] 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 the Jewish organization theAnti-Defamation League.[8] "ZOG" is conceptualized by its believers as a kind of secret all-powerful government entity, sometimes of the whole world.[8]
The association of Jews with the control of economic forces is the modern resurgence of an oldstereotype, that of the "greedy Jewish merchant", that has been present in the Christian world since theMiddle Ages.[3] The conspiracy theory illustrates a specifically Americanfar-rightagrarian preoccupation, namely the vital possibility of extinction allegedly faced by the rural world, seen as the backbone of America, a danger caused by a remote, centralized and power-hungry metropolitan elite corrupted by "alien" influences.[9] The ZOG concept is an evolution of early conspiracy theories of Jewish control over the world.[8] Activists imagined a variety of plots gravitating around 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 American foreign policy. Despite their singularities, most ZOG theories involve the idea of a Jewish power over finance or banking, including one imagining Jewish control of theFederal Reserve.[3]
Alternate names for it include Zionist Occupational Government,[10] or Zionist-Occupied Government, or the Jewish Occupational Government (JOG).[11][12]
In late 19th-century France, the insinuation that theFrench government was in the power of the Jews was a commonplace claim in anti-republican discourse.[9] Early ideological influences on the conspiracy include the antisemiticThe Dearborn Independent and the forged tractThe Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.[13]
The origins of the ZOG conspiracy specifically are instead connected to the American civil rights landscape and particularly anti-hate Jewish activist groups.[8] Before the primacy of theAnti-Defamation League, the 1940s Jewish group theAmerican Jewish Congress was more prominent.[14] The AJC, in an effort to stop antisemites likeGerald L. K. Smith andGeorge Lincoln Rockwell from getting attention and therefore more power, encouraged a "quarantine" of them in the media, by encouraging Jewish groups and newspapers to not react to their provocations.[14] Jeffrey Kaplan identified Rockwell's frustration with this policy as being the true moment of the ZOG idea's conception, with this serving to reinforce his followers beliefs in a Jewish conspiracy, believing that the policy was evidence of collusion between these groups and the government.[14]
An early appearance of the term was in a 1976 article, "Welcome to ZOG-World", attributed to an Americanneo-Nazi named Eric Thomson, but Canadianwhite nationalists also used the term.[15] The concept (although not the term itself) is a major theme in the 1978 bookThe Turner Diaries byWilliam Luther Pierce, founder of theNational Alliance, awhite nationalist organization.[9][16] Pierce himself identified the American government as "ZOG".[17]
The term surged in usage among the far-right in the 1980s and on to the 1990s.[18] It was spread throughwhite power music in Europe and America, particularly in Sweden.[18] The term came to the attention of a larger audience in a 27 December 1984 article inThe New York Times about robberies committed inCalifornia andWashington by awhite supremacist group calledthe Order of the Silent Brotherhood. According to theTimes, the crimes "were conducted to raise money for a war upon theUnited States government, which the group calls 'ZOG', or Zionist Occupation Government."[9][16] In 1985, the Oregon-based far-right groupPosse Comitatus claimed: "Our nation is now completely under the control of the International Invisible government of World Jewry."[19]
The belief is also used among Christian Identity adherents.[20] The Order was an offshoot ofAryan Nations, an organization founded in the early 1970s byRichard Girnt Butler, who since the 1950s had been associated with anotherantisemitic group, theChurch of Jesus Christ–Christian. Both these groups trace their origins to antisemitic activists such asGerald L.K. Smith and have interacted with theKu Klux Klan. The term appeared extensively in Aryan Nations literature. In 1985, theAnti-Defamation League reported that Aryan Nations had set up an electronicbulletin board system called "Aryan Nation Liberty Net" to offer information for the locations ofCommunist Party USA offices and "ZOG informers".[21]
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 [...] [all] having a direct object—the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states." Claiming that "the eradication of theWhite race and its culture" is "one of its foremost purposes", the ZOG is accused of relinquishing powers of government 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 freedoms 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.[9][22]
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".[23] The antisemitic websiteJew Watch claims that the entire spectrum ofWestern nations and other countries are being ruled by "Zionist Occupied Governments".[24]
Slovak politicianMarian Kotleba, whose party (People's Party Our Slovakia) won two seats in theEuropean Parliament in the2019 election,[25] claims that the "Z. O. G." controls Slovak politics.[26]
...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.
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.
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.
In Kotleba's eyes, every political skirmish in Slovakia is a "very well prepared performance" directed by Z. O. G. (the "Zionist Occupation Government").
