Zionist Occupation Government
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Zionist Occupation (or Occupied) Government, or ZOG, is an accusation made by antisemitic conspiracy theorists that a certain government is controlled by Jews. It has been leveled by several extremist and antisemitic groups in various countries, such as neo-Nazis in the United States, Pamyat in Russia, right-wing groups in Poland (see Żydokomuna), and neo-Nazis in Sweden.
In this case, the word “Zionist” is a racist slur intended to portray Jews as conspirators who aim to control the world, as in the forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This usage is often deliberately vague and should not be confused with the political ideology of Zionism, although such confusion is often exploited by proponents of the conspiracy theory.
Contents |
[edit] History
The name first appeared in the article Welcome to ZOG-World, written by the American neo-Nazi Eric Thomson in 1976, and appears to have first been brought to widespread attention in a December 27, 1984 article in The New York Times about robberies committed in California and Washington by a white supremacist group, The Order. According to the newspaper, the crimes "were conducted to raise money for a war upon the United States Government, which the group calls 'ZOG,' or Zionist Occupation Government."
The Order of the Silent Brotherhood was an offshoot of the Aryan Nations, an organization founded in the early 1970s by Richard G. Butler; the latter had since the 1950s been associated with another anti-Semitic group, called the Church of Jesus Christ Christian. Both of these groups trace their origins to anti-Semitic activists, like Gerald L. K. Smith, and have interacted with the Ku Klux Klan.
The name was publicized extensively in Aryan Nations literature. In December 1984, almost ten years before the appearance of the World Wide Web, Newsweek magazine reported that the Aryan Nations had set up a bulletin board called "Aryan Nation Liberty Net" to offer information such as, for instance, the locations of Communist Party offices and "ZOG informers".
In 1996, Aryan Nations posted to its website an "Aryan Declaration of Independence", in which we find 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." Holding "the eradication of the White race and its culture" as "one of its foremost purposes", the "ZOG" is accused of relinquishing "powers of government to private corporations, White traitors and ruling class Jewish families."
Since 1996 the name has spread in usage, and is now popular with many other anti-Semitic organizations. Swedish Neo-Nazis, for example, say that Jews (naturally, in the Swedish Zionist Occupied Government) are importing immigrants to "dilute the blood of the white race". (Allan Pred, Even in Sweden, University of California Press: 2000.) Websites such as Jew Watch accuse the entire spectrum of Western nations, and other countries like the Commonwealth of Independent States of being ruled by "Zionist Occupation Governments". Satirical references to the phrase are also common, for example the website Creedish Occupied Government!, which claims that the government is controlled by the Amish).
[edit] See also
- Anti-semitism
- Jewish Bolshevism
- Zionism
- William Pierce
- "Betrayed", film (1988 by Costa-Gavras)
- Blood in the Face (1991 film)
[edit] External links
- Secret Map of the Elders of Zion (satire)
