The term appears to date back to the mid-1980s, although it may have been coined even earlier. It 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 state by a white supremacist group, the Order of the Silent Brotherhood. 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 OSB was an offshoot of the Aryan Nations, a group founded in the early 1970s by Richard G. Butler, who had been associated since the 1950s with another anti-Semitic group, the Church of Jesus Christ Christian. These groups trace their origins back to anti-Semitic activists such as Gerald L. K. Smith, and most grew out of the milieu of the Ku Klux Klan. It seems likely that the term "Zionist Occupation Government" originated with the Aryan Nations. It was publicised extensively in its literature and the group moved into online communications at a very early stage: in December 1984, Newsweek magazine reported that the Aryan Nations had set up a bulletin board called "Aryan Nation Liberty Net" that offered information like the locations of Communist party offices and "ZOG informers."
In 1996, Aryan Nations posted to its website an "Aryan Declaration of Independence," which declared, "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," this "ZOG" is accused of relinquishing the "powers of government to private corporations, White traitors and ruling class Jewish families."
Aryan Nations describes Jews as "the natural enemy of our Aryan (White) Race. This is attested by scripture and all secular history. The Jew is like a destroying virus that attacks our racial body to destroy our Aryan culture and the purity of our Race." Supporters of the ZOG premise often contrast the "tyrannical" actions of the Zionist Occupied Government with the supposed freedom-loving Christian purity of white Americans, as in the example of Pastor Carl Franklin of the Aryan Nations. He was quoted in an April 21, 1993 article in the British newspaper The Guardian as saying that "[y]ou have the tyranny of a Zionist occupation government coming foursquare against a Christian, American white family."
Citing the Book of Revelation, Aryan Nations envisions a "battle" being fought "between the children of darkness (today known as Jews) and the children of light...the Aryan Race, the true Israel of the Bible." There will "soon" be a "day of reckoning," in which "the usurper will be thrown out by the terrible might of Yahweh's people, as they return to their roots and their special destiny." In this struggle between the Jews and "the children of light," Aryan Nations says that the Jews have a surrogate: the Zionist Occupied Government of the United States.
Since 1996 the expression has been picked up and used by various other anti-Semitic groups. A search with Google reveals 882 hits for "Zionist Occupied Government", and over 6,500 hits for articles containing both the words "ZOG" and "Zionist".
This word has also come to be used satirically (See Creedish Occupied Government!, a website alleging the government is controlled by the Amish). The term has been adapted to other political contexts. Leftwingers have referred to the "Korporate Occupied Government." (See The Grassy Knoll.) In India there are references to the "Brahmin Occupied Government." American saxophonist and composer John Zorn performed and recorded with a trio called ZOG.
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External links
Websites alleging there is a ZOG
Websites discussing "ZOG" as a form of anti-Semitism