Zionist Occupation Government conspiracy theory

Last updated

The Zionist occupation government, Zionist occupational government or Zionist-occupied government (ZOG), sometimes also called the Jewish occupational government (JOG), [1] [2] is an antisemitic conspiracy theory claiming that Jews secretly control the governments of Western states. [3] [4] It is a contemporary variation on the centuries-old belief in an international Jewish conspiracy. According to believers, a secret Zionist organization actively controls international banks, and through them governments, to conspire against white, Christian, or Islamic interests. [5]

Contents

The expression is used by white supremacist, white nationalist, far-right, nativist [6] or antisemitic groups in Europe [7] and the United States, [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] as well as by ultra-nationalists such as Pamyat in Russia and various far-right groups, including the Freemen, Identity Christians, and the Ku Klux Klan. [6]

The word Zionist 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 and Israel to control the world [8] as depicted in the forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion . [14] [15]

Origins

The association of Jews with the control of economic forces is the modern resurgence of an old stereotype, that of the "greedy Jewish merchant", that has been present in the Christian world since the Middle Ages. [5] The conspiracy theory illustrates a specifically American far-right agrarian 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. [16]

History

In late 19th-century France, the insinuation that the French government was in the power of the Jews was a commonplace claim in anti-republican discourse. [16] The British fascist Arnold Leese already had the habit of referring to the "Jewish government" of his nation in the interwar and postwar decades. At the same time, Nazis under the Weimar Republic dismissed a so-called "Jewish" hand behind that regime.

An early appearance of the term was in a 1976 article, "Welcome to ZOG-World", attributed to an American neo-Nazi named Eric Thomson, but Canadian white nationalists also used the term. [17] It features as the main theme in the 1978 book The Turner Diaries by William Luther Pierce, founder of the National Alliance, a white nationalist organization. The term came to the attention of a larger audience in a 27 December 1984 article in The New York Times 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." [16] [18] In 1985, the Oregon-based far-right group Posse Comitatus claimed: "Our nation is now completely under the control of the International Invisible government of World Jewry." [19]

The Order of the Silent Brotherhood was an offshoot of the Aryan Nations, an organization founded in the early 1970s by Richard Girnt Butler, who since the 1950s had been associated with another antisemitic group, the Church of Jesus Christ–Christian. Both these groups trace their origins to antisemitic activists such as Gerald L.K. Smith and have interacted with the Ku Klux Klan. The term appeared extensively in Aryan Nations literature. In 1985, the Anti-Defamation League reported that the Aryan Nations had set up an electronic bulletin board system called "Aryan Nation Liberty Net" to offer information for the locations of Communist Party USA offices and "ZOG informers". [20]

In 1996, the 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 the White race and its culture" is "one of its foremost purposes", the ZOG is accused of relinquishing powers of government 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 freedoms 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. [16] [21]

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". [22] The antisemitic website Jew Watch claims that the entire spectrum of Western nations and other countries are being ruled by "Zionist Occupation Governments". [23]

Slovak politician Marian Kotleba, whose party (People's Party Our Slovakia) won two seats in the European Parliament in the 2019 election, [24] claims that the "Z. O. G." controls Slovak politics. [25]

Conspiracy theories

Activists imagined a variety of plots gravitating around 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 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 the Federal Reserve. [5]

Neo-Nazi David Lane developed his version of the white genocide conspiracy theory in his c.  1995White Genocide Manifesto, the origin of the later use of the term. [26] [27] [28] [29] Lane claimed that the government policies of many Western countries had the intent of destroying white European culture and making white people an "extinct species". [30] Lane—a founding member of the organization The Order—criticized miscegenation, abortion, homosexuality, alleged Jewish control of the media, "multiracial sports", the legal repercussions against those who "resist genocide", and the ZOG that he said controls the United States and the other majority-white countries, which encourages "white genocide". [30]

See also

Related Research Articles

Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against, Jews. This sentiment is a form of racism, and a person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Primarily, antisemitic tendencies may be motivated by negative sentiment towards Jews as a people or by negative sentiment towards Jews with regard to Judaism. In the former case, usually presented as racial antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by the belief that Jews constitute a distinct race with inherent traits or characteristics that are repulsive or inferior to the preferred traits or characteristics within that person's society. In the latter case, known as religious antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by their religion's perception of Jews and Judaism, typically encompassing doctrines of supersession that expect or demand Jews to turn away from Judaism and submit to the religion presenting itself as Judaism's successor faith—this is a common theme within the other Abrahamic religions. The development of racial and religious antisemitism has historically been encouraged by the concept of anti-Judaism, which is distinct from antisemitism itself.

Antisemitism has increased greatly in the Arab world since the beginning of the 20th century, for several reasons: the dissolution and breakdown of the Ottoman Empire and traditional Islamic society; European influence, brought about by Western imperialism and Arab Christians; Nazi propaganda and relations between Nazi Germany and the Arab world; resentment over Jewish nationalism; the rise of Arab nationalism; and the widespread proliferation of anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist conspiracy theories.

A number of organizations and academics consider the Nation of Islam (NOI) to be antisemitic. The NOI has engaged in Holocaust denial, and exaggerates the role of Jews in the African slave trade; mainstream historians, such as Saul S. Friedman, have said Jews had a negligible role. The NOI has repeatedly rejected charges made against it as false and politically motivated.

Jew Watch was an antisemitic website promoting Holocaust denial and negative claims about Jews. The claims included allegations of a conspiracy that Jews control the media and banking, as well as accusations of Jewish involvement in terrorist groups. The site contained propaganda, according to Sam Varghese of The Age, similar to that used in Nazi Germany. It was widely considered a hate site. Jew Watch received support from Stormfront, a white nationalist and neo-Nazi site. The site described itself as a "not-for-profit library for private study, scholarship, or research [that keeps] a close watch on Jewish Communities and organizations worldwide".

Jewish Bolshevism, also Judeo–Bolshevism, is an antisemitic and anti-communist conspiracy theory that claims that the Russian Revolution of 1917 was a Jewish plot and that Jews controlled the Soviet Union and international communist movements, often in furtherance of a plan to destroy Western civilization. It was one of the main Nazi beliefs that served as an ideological justification for the German invasion of the Soviet Union and the Holocaust.

This is a list of topics related to racism:

Antisemitic tropes or antisemitic canards are "sensational reports, misrepresentations, or fabrications" that are defamatory towards Judaism as a religion or defamatory towards Jews as an ethnic or religious group. Since as early as the 2nd century, libels or allegations of Jewish guilt and cruelty emerged as a recurring motif along with antisemitic conspiracy theories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory</span> Anti-Semitic and anti-Masonic conspiracy theory

The Judeo-Masonic conspiracy is an antisemitic and anti-Masonic conspiracy theory involving an alleged secret coalition of Jews and Freemasons. These theories are popular on the far-right, particularly in France, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Russia, Serbia, Eastern Europe, and Japan, with similar allegations still being published.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of antisemitism in the United States</span>

Different opinions exist among historians regarding the extent of antisemitism in American history and how American antisemitism contrasted with its European counterpart. In contrast to the horrors of European history, John Higham states that in the United States "no decisive event, no deep crisis, no powerful social movement, no great individual is associated primarily with, or significant chiefly because of anti-Semitism." Accordingly, David A. Gerber concludes that antisemitism "has been a distinctly minor feature of the nation's historical development." Historian Britt Tevis argue that, "Handlin and Higham’s ideas remain influential, and many American Jewish historians continue to present antisemitism as largely insignificant, momentary, primarily social."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anti-Zionism</span> Opposition to Zionism

Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism. Although anti-Zionism is a heterogeneous phenomenon, all its proponents agree that the creation of the modern State of Israel, and the movement to create a sovereign Jewish state in the region of Palestine—a region partly coinciding with the biblical Land of Israel—was flawed or unjust in some way.

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a fabricated antisemitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan to achieve global domination. The text was fabricated in the Russian Empire, and was first published in 1903. While there is continued popularity of The Protocols in nations from South America to Asia, since the defeat of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan in World War II, governments or political leaders in most parts of the world have generally avoided claims that The Protocols represent factual evidence of a real Jewish conspiracy. The exception to this is the Middle East, where a large number of Arab and Muslim regimes and leaders have endorsed them as authentic. Past endorsements of The Protocols from Presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat of Egypt, Iraqi President Arif, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, and Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya, among other political and intellectual leaders of the Arab world, are echoed by 21st century endorsements from the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Ekrima Sa'id Sabri, and Hamas, to the education ministry of Saudi Arabia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Criticism of Israel</span> Disapproval towards the Israeli government

Criticism of Israel is a subject of journalistic and scholarly commentary and research within the scope of international relations theory, expressed in terms of political science. Israel has faced international criticism since its establishment in 1948 relating to a variety of issues, many of which are centered around human rights violations in its occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Economic antisemitism is antisemitism that uses stereotypes and canards that are based on negative perceptions or assertions of the economic status, occupations or economic behaviour of Jews, at times leading to various governmental policies, regulations, taxes and laws that target or which disproportionately impact the economic status, occupations or behaviour of Jews.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Italian fascism and racism</span> Overview of Italian fascism and racism

Initially, Fascist Italy did not enact comprehensive racist policies like those policies which were enacted by its World War II Axis partner Nazi Germany. Italy's National Fascist Party leader, Benito Mussolini, expressed different views on the subject of race over the course of his career. In an interview conducted in 1932 at the Palazzo di Venezia in Rome, he said "Race? It is a feeling, not a reality: ninety-five percent, at least, is a feeling. Nothing will ever make me believe that biologically pure races can be shown to exist today".

Antisemitism in contemporary Hungary principally takes the form of negative stereotypes relating to Jews, although historically it manifested itself more violently. Studies show antisemitism has become more prevalent since the fall of Communism, particularly among the younger generations. Surveys performed from 2009 and beyond have consistently found high levels of antisemitic feelings amongst the general population.

The Right Stuff is a neo-Nazi and white nationalist blog and discussion forum and the host of several podcasts, including The Daily Shoah. Founded by American neo-Nazi Mike Enoch, the website promotes Holocaust denial, and coined the use of "echoes", an antisemitic marker that uses triple parentheses around names to identify Jewish people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mike Enoch</span> American white supremacist blogger and podcast host (born 1977)

Michael Enoch Isaac Peinovich, more commonly known as Mike Enoch, is an American neo-Nazi, antisemitic conspiracy theorist, Holocaust denier, blogger, and podcast host. He founded the alt-right media network The Right Stuff and podcast The Daily Shoah. Through his work, Enoch ridicules African Americans, Jews, and other minorities, advocates racial discrimination, and promotes conspiracy theories such as Holocaust denial and white genocide.

The claim that there was a Jewish war against Nazi Germany is an antisemitic conspiracy theory promoted in Nazi propaganda which asserts that the Jews, framed within the theory as a single historical actor, started World War II and sought the destruction of Germany. Alleging that war was declared in 1939 by Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Organization, Nazis used this false notion to justify the persecution of Jews under German control on the grounds that the Holocaust was justified self-defense. Since the end of World War II, the conspiracy theory has been popular among neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers.

The international Jewish conspiracy or the world Jewish conspiracy has been described as "one of the most widespread and long-running conspiracy theories". Although it typically claims that a malevolent, usually global Jewish circle, referred to as International Jewry, conspires for world domination, the theory's content is extremely variable, which helps explain its wide distribution and long duration. It was popularized in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century especially by the antisemitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Among the beliefs that posit an international Jewish conspiracy are Jewish Bolshevism, Cultural Marxism, Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory, White genocide conspiracy theory and Holocaust denial. The Nazi leadership's belief in an international Jewish conspiracy that it blamed for starting World War II and controlling the Allied powers was key to their decision to launch the Final Solution.

Zionist antisemitism or antisemitic Zionism refers to a phenomenon in which antisemites express support for Zionism and the State of Israel. In some cases, this support may be promoted for explicitly antisemitic reasons. Historically, this type of antisemitism has been most notable among Christian Zionists, who may perpetrate religious antisemitism while being outspoken in their support for Jewish sovereignty in Israel due to their interpretation of Christian eschatology. Similarly, people who identify with the political far-right, particularly in Europe and the United States, may support the Zionist movement because they seek to expel Jews from their country and see Zionism as the least complicated method of achieving this goal and satisfying their racial antisemitism.

References

  1. ↑ Swain, Carol (2003). Contemporary voices of white nationalism in America. Cambridge, UK New York: Cambridge University Press. p.  253. ISBN   0521816734.
  2. ↑ Mogelson, Luke (January 15, 2021). "Among the Insurrectionists". The New Yorker . Retrieved January 17, 2021.
  3. ↑ Simonsen, Kjetil Braut (2020-10-19). "Antisemitism on the Norwegian Far-Right, 1967–2018". Scandinavian Journal of History. 45 (5): 640–662. doi:10.1080/03468755.2020.1726809. ISSN   0346-8755.
  4. ↑ Larsson, Stieg (7 January 2014). The Expo Files: Articles by the Crusading Journalist. Quercus. ISBN   9781623650650 . Retrieved 24 April 2017.
  5. 1 2 3 Issitt, Micah; Main, Carlyn (16 September 2014). Hidden Religion: The Greatest Mysteries and Symbols of the World's Religious Beliefs. ABC-CLIO. pp. 31–32. ISBN   9781610694780.
  6. 1 2 Perimutter, Dawn (2004). Investigating Religious Terror and Ritualistic Crimes. CRC Press. p. 49. ISBN   9781420041040.
  7. ↑ Weitz, Eric; Fenner, Angelica, eds. (2004), Fascism and Neofascism: Critical Writings on the Radical Right in Europe, Studies in European Culture and History, Palgrave Macmillan, p. 208, ISBN   978-1-40396659-9, ...the neo-Nazis have proclaimed themselves a white/Aryan resistance movement fighting the Zionist Occupation Government (ZOG) and racial traitors..
  8. 1 2 Daniels 1997, p. 45.
  9. ↑ Bronner, Stephen Eric (2000), A Rumor About the Jews: Reflections on Antisemitism and "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion", Palgrave Macmillan, p. 136, The National States Rights Party and the California Noontide Press distributed the Protocols during the 1970s and it is still hailed by representatives of right-wing militias: William Luther Pierce, author of the neofascist bestseller The Turner Diaries , for example, identifies the American state as a "Zionist Occupation Government.
  10. ↑ Brasher, Brenda (2001), Encyclopedia of Fundamentalism, Routledge, p. 305, With the racist and anti-Semitic theology of Christian Identity as their justification, they blame the Jewish Antichrist, or the Zionist Occupation Government (ZOG), which rules in Washington, taking its orders from internationalist Jews in Israel, the United Nations, and the Fortune 500. Attracting old-line hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan and inspiring newer ones like the Aryan Nation Alliance..., the militia and Patriot movements have helped to legitimize racist and anti-Semitic hate groups...
  11. ↑ Perry, Barbara (2003), Hate and Bias Crime, Routledge, p. 325, ...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.
  12. ↑ Pilch, Richard F; Zilinskas, Raymond A (2005), Encyclopedia of Bioterrorism Defense, Wiley, p. 114, 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.
  13. ↑ Sauter, Mark; Carafano, James (2005), Homeland Security, McGraw-Hill, p. 122, 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.
  14. ↑ Schwarz, Rabbi Sidney (2006), Judaism and Justice: The Jewish Passion to Repair the World, Jewish Lights Publishing, p.  96, ISBN   1-58023-312-0, One of the most widely distributed anti-Semitic tracts in history is The Protocols of the Elders of Zion , a book of antisemitic canards authored in the nineteenth century that portrays Jews as conspiring to seek global dominance. Similarly, American-based racist groups in this last century have frequently leveled accusations against Jews for controlling both banks and public officials..
  15. ↑ Shay, Scott A. (2022-01-20). "Why conspiracy theorists so often aim their ire at Jews". New York Daily News. Retrieved 2024-06-25. Postwar neo-Nazi conspiracy theories shifted to Israel as well, touting the United States as the "Zionist Occupation Government."
  16. 1 2 3 4 Blamires, Cyprian (2006). World Fascism: A-K. ABC-CLIO. p. 749. ISBN   9781576079409.
  17. ↑ Thomson, Eric, Welcome to ZOG-World, FAEM, archived from the original on 2012-12-27, retrieved 2007-04-16.
  18. ↑ King, Wayne (27 December 1984). "Links of Anti-semitic Band Provoke 6-state Parley". The New York Times. p. 7. Canadian White Nationalists use this term as well.
  19. ↑ Christian Posse Comitatus Newsletter, n.d. quoted in Stern, Kenneth S (1996), A Force upon the Plain: The American Militia Movement and the Politics of Hate, New York: Simon & Schuster, p. 50.
  20. ↑ Ianniello, Lynne (1985). "ADL News Release" (PDF). Anti-Defamation League – via archive.org.
  21. ↑ Aryan Nations (12 March 1996). "Declaration of Independence". Internet Archive. Retrieved 18 August 2019.
  22. ↑ Pred, Allan (2000), Even in Sweden, University of California Press.
  23. ↑ "Jewish Occupied Governments". Jew Watch. Archived from the original on 21 September 2012. Retrieved 9 January 2008.
  24. ↑ "Súhrnné výsledky hlasovania podľa územného členenia: Výsledky za SR". Archived from the original on 12 August 2017. Retrieved 9 December 2019.
  25. ↑ Paulovičová, Nina (2018). "Holocaust Memory and Antisemitism in Slovakia: The Postwar Era to the Present". Antisemitism Studies . 2 (1). Indiana University Press: 17, 19–22. doi:10.2979/antistud.2.1.02. S2CID   165383570. In Kotleba's eyes, every political skirmish in Slovakia is a "very well prepared performance" directed by Z. O. G. (the "Zionist Occupation Government").
  26. ↑ Berger, J. M. "How 'The Turner Diaries' Changed White Nationalism". The Atlantic. Retrieved 24 November 2017. The manifesto itself was soon reduced to the simple phrase 'white genocide', which proliferated at the start of the 21st century and has become the overwhelmingly dominant meme of modern white nationalism.
  27. ↑ Dessem, Matthew (26 December 2016). "Drexel University, Apparently Unfamiliar With White Supremacist Lingo, Censures Prof For 'White Genocide' Tweet". Slate. ISSN   1091-2339 . Retrieved 24 November 2017. Although it's difficult to date precisely, white supremacist publishing houses being somewhat less reliable than Simon & Schuster, that honor probably belongs to the late David Lane, terrorist, white supremacist, and author of an execrable little essay called 'White Genocide Manifesto'.
  28. ↑ Stack, Liam (15 August 2017). "Alt-Right, Alt-Left, Antifa: A Glossary of Extremist Language". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 20 January 2018.
  29. ↑ Feshami, Kevan A. (6 September 2017). "Fear of White Genocide". Lapham's Quarterly. Retrieved 20 January 2018.
  30. 1 2 Jackson, Paul (1 May 2015). "'White genocide': Postwar fascism and the ideological value of evoking existential conflicts". In Cathie Carmichael; Richard C. Maguire (eds.). The Routledge History of Genocide. Routledge. pp. 207–226. ISBN   9781317514848. Duke's current website hosts a variety of essays that develop the idea that white people are being subjected to a genocide. Again we see a key linkage here between raising the idea of a white genocide and decrying liberal political ideals. In one such essay, 'The Genocide of the White Race is Promoted by Liberals', the point is set out as follows: ... The actions being taken by liberal governments to force non-White into every White nation will eventually eliminate the White race itself.

Bibliography

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.