My latest piece over at Commentary discusses a disturbing new rhetorical trend in antisemitism: the mainstreaming on both left and right of the Zionist-Occupied Government (ZOG) conspiracy theory. This particular turn of phrase is so dangerous because of where it emanates from - the neo-Nazi movement - and who has previously embraced it - the Nation of Islam and radical jihadist movements.
Below is an excerpt, but you can read the whole thing here.
Pernicious theories about Jewish and Israeli influence over American politics and life are nothing new. The most popular of these, the idea that AIPAC controls Congress via its lobbying and donations, has been repeated by everyone from online influencers to politicians, including by Greene and Gaetz in that same clip. So why is this particular claim of “occupation” any different? The answer lies in its origin among and past usage by a wide variety of violent anti-Semitic radicals: neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and the Nation of Islam (NOI).
The conspiracy theory that the American government is run by an evil Zionist (read: Jewish) cabal has been a mainstay of these dark corners of society for half a century. It has been embraced wholeheartedly since its earliest instantiation in the 1970s, including as a plot point in the highly influential white-supremacist novel-tract The Turner Diaries, published in 1978. Aligning against the “ZOG” (Zionist Occupied Government or Zionist Occupation Government) became a primary facet of neo-Nazi organizing in the United States and Europe from then on. The man who is perhaps America’s most infamous white supremacist, the former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, has repeatedly used this trope, including in a 2019 podcast in which he praised Democratic representative Ilhan Omar for her “defiance to ZOG.” The left and right are not the only strange bedfellows to be linked by this rhetoric. The opposite side of the radical anti-Semitic horseshoe—the black nationalists of the Nation of Islam—has also adopted this phrase as their own.
Anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories about malign Jewish control of world affairs have been the foundation of Nation of Islam ideology since the middle of the 20th century. The “ZOG” phraseology was a natural next step. In the 1980s, white supremacists and black nationalists found a great deal of common ground in their desire for enforced segregation, national dissolution, and, of course, Jew-hatred. There were several direct connections between the two sides, including high-level meetings, rhetorical support, intelligence sharing, and even some low-level financial contributions. The apotheosis of this despicable lovefest came with the publication and promotion of a map detailing the proposed partition of the United States into what the map calls three sectors: a White American Bastion, the Nation of Islam, and the Zionist Occupation Government, based in New York City. The ZOG capital is referred to on the map as Hymietown, a nickname for the Big Apple used by Jesse Jackson in a conversation with the Washington Post’s Milton Coleman during Jackson’s unexpectedly successful 1984 Democratic presidential campaign, in which he used Nation of Islam militia members as his private security guards. That rhetoric of anti-Semitic racial separatism has continued ever since in Nation of Islam material, alongside that of their white-supremacist brethren.
In the meantime, other anti-Semitic hate groups, including Islamist terrorist factions, have jumped onto the bandwagon. This rhetoric allows them to push not only anti-Jewish animus but also a radical anti-Americanism that fits with their broader ideological project of throwing down Western Civilization.
