The ZOG Myth and the Architecture of Modern Conspiracy
Part II of the Jussur Series on Conspiracy Narratives, Public Trust, and the Collapse of Reality
“The oldest lies survive by adapting.”
In Part I, we examined how wars in Gaza, U.S. posturing toward Iran, and the enduring lack of accountability for elite wrongdoing have created a climate of suspicion. These are not abstract patterns. They shape the way people interpret reality. When Western governments appear to act with uniform support for one side in a conflict, when war crimes go unpunished, and when media institutions recycle official narratives without critique, many observers move from skepticism into certainty: the idea that something larger, something invisible, must be at work behind the scenes.
That certainty draws on a much older myth. One of the most enduring and dangerous conspiracy narratives of modern times is the belief in a Zionist hand manipulating world events—a belief codified in the idea of a “Zionist Occupied Government,” or ZOG. This phrase, which originated in the white supremacist fringe, has now entered broader discourse under new guises. Its function remains the same: to offer a simple, totalizing explanation for complex political dynamics by attributing them to a hidden ethnic or ideological force.
This post traces how the ZOG myth evolved from early twentieth-century antisemitic propaganda into a modular infrastructure for modern conspiratorial thinking. We examine its origins, how it has adapted to different ideological currents, and how it functions today across far-right, far-left, and even mainstream spaces.
From Protocols to ZOG: The Blueprint
The ZOG conspiracy is not new. Its modern expression was preceded by one of history’s most infamous forgeries: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, published in 1903 by elements within Tsarist Russia’s secret police. The text falsely claimed to be a record of secret meetings by Jewish leaders plotting world domination. It portrayed Jews as scheming manipulators bent on controlling finance, media, and politics to subjugate gentiles.
Despite being thoroughly debunked, the Protocols spread across Europe and the Middle East. It became canonical in antisemitic ideology, cited by Nazi propagandists and referenced by authoritarian regimes to explain economic collapse, political unrest, and foreign interference. In Arab nationalist circles, particularly following Israel’s establishment in 1948, the text was translated and circulated widely as proof of an international Zionist conspiracy.
Its strength lay in its structure. Rather than outline specific individuals or plots, the Protocols presented a broad narrative template: a hidden cabal manipulates events from behind the scenes for self-serving, destructive ends. This ambiguity made the text endlessly adaptable. Any political shift, any crisis, any war could be folded into the myth. It became less a forgery than a script—one that extremists across generations could revise for their own context.
By the 1980s, in the United States, this narrative took on a new name: ZOG.
ZOG and the White Nationalist Lexicon
The term “Zionist Occupied Government” was coined by white nationalist groups in the United States during the late 1970s and 1980s. These groups argued that the American government was no longer truly American. Instead, it was supposedly under the control of “Zionist” interests—code for Jews, often with the implication that support for Israel was a symptom of this occupation.
In this worldview, everything from civil rights legislation to multiculturalism and immigration policy was seen as part of a plot to weaken white Christian America. The government’s support for Israel was not simply foreign policy but a sign that Jews had hijacked national sovereignty. This was the thesis of publications like The Turner Diaries, a novel written by white supremacist William Luther Pierce, which became a manifesto for domestic terrorism. It described a future race war precipitated by resistance to ZOG, and inspired real-world acts of violence, including the Oklahoma City bombing.
ZOG quickly entered the lexicon of white power groups and militias. It was scrawled on signs at protests, circulated in leaflets, and shared in private newsletters. It offered a single explanation for every perceived injustice or cultural shift: from feminism and secularism to declining white birthrates. All of it, they claimed, was orchestrated by the hidden hand of Jewish power.
What made ZOG durable was not just its ideological appeal to racists. It was the modularity of the narrative. Anyone who felt disempowered—by globalization, by changing demographics, by government bureaucracy—could plug their grievances into the ZOG framework. It gave shape to rage. And it made that rage righteous.
Memes, Irony, and Mainstream Creep
The rise of the internet brought a new phase to the ZOG myth. On message boards like 4chan’s /pol/, users developed a culture of coded language and ironic antisemitism. Memes allowed hateful ideas to circulate under the guise of humor. The Happy Merchant, a grotesque caricature of a Jewish banker rubbing his hands, became a visual shorthand for hidden control. Triple parentheses ((( ))) were used to “echo” Jewish names, tagging individuals as part of the supposed cabal.
This meme culture was not confined to overt neo-Nazis. It drew in trolls, edge-lords, and disenfranchised young men looking for belonging. It taught a new generation how to joke about genocide and how to frame world events as part of a secret agenda—all while laughing.
In these spaces, “ZOG” became a casual tag. A politician supports Ukraine? “ZOG orders confirmed.” A financial scandal breaks? “ZOG strikes again.” It was shorthand for every grievance, every suspicion. Its repeated use normalized it, even for users who didn’t understand its origin.
This ironic antisemitism eventually began to bleed into broader discourse. Figures like Alex Jones talked about “globalist elites.” Other pundits railed against “puppet governments” or “bankers controlling the system.” The Jewish subtext was often thinly veiled, if not explicit.
ZOG in the Arab and Muslim World
The idea of a Zionist cabal is also widespread in the Arab and Muslim world, where it has long merged with legitimate anger at Israel’s occupation and U.S. foreign policy. But the boundary between political critique and conspiracy often blurs.
In some media narratives, Zionists are not just accused of lobbying Western politicians but of engineering revolutions, creating terrorist groups, or manipulating economic collapse to divide Muslim countries. During the Iraq War and the Arab Spring, claims proliferated that Israeli or American intelligence had seeded chaos deliberately to remake the region.
These claims, while often unsupported by evidence, gained traction in societies where Western powers had a documented history of covert interference. When people have seen their borders redrawn by colonial agreements and their governments overthrown by foreign-backed coups, the idea of a secret plot does not seem far-fetched. The problem arises when that suspicion becomes indiscriminate—when Zionists or Jews become a catch-all explanation for every crisis, and when real structural injustices are dismissed in favor of easy scapegoats.
The internet accelerated this global convergence. Now, a white nationalist in Montana and a radicalized teen in Cairo can share the same meme. The ideology is adaptable. The villain remains the same.
QAnon: A Familiar Script in New Costume
Perhaps the most effective vehicle for revitalizing antisemitic conspiracy in the digital age is the QAnon movement.
QAnon began with cryptic “Q drops” on imageboards, suggesting that Donald Trump was secretly battling a global cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles. This cabal was said to control politics, media, and finance. Followers believed mass arrests were imminent. The slogan: “Trust the plan.”
Although Jews were rarely named directly, the narrative structure mimicked the Protocols. A secret group rules the world. The media lies to protect them. The truth is known only to the initiated. An apocalyptic reckoning is coming.
Many QAnon followers began to name the cabal. George Soros, the Rothschilds, Hollywood executives—nearly all Jewish figures. The blood libel resurfaced in the form of “adrenochrome harvesting.” The demonization of elites became inseparable from the demonization of Jews, whether intentionally or through inherited tropes.
QAnon’s reach extended far beyond internet fringe groups. It influenced members of Congress. It shaped voter perceptions. It became a subculture.
Gaza, Hashtags, and the Feedback Loop
After the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, and Israel’s military campaign in response, antisemitic conspiracy rhetoric exploded online.
The hashtag #HitlerWasRight trended globally. Memes suggesting that Israel orchestrated the attack as a pretext for genocide went viral. Users on social media declared that the media’s silence proved that “Zionists control the narrative.”
These posts often began with legitimate criticisms—about civilian casualties, about double standards in coverage—but they ended with sweeping conclusions: that Zionists control Western governments, that Jews silence dissent, that the war itself was planned in advance.
This is the final function of the ZOG narrative: to interpret every news story as confirmation. The more Israel is defended by Western leaders, the more the conspiracy seems real. The more biased the coverage appears, the more powerful the supposed cabal must be. Each act of violence, each diplomatic veto, becomes not just a tragedy, but a revelation. “They are showing us who really runs the world.”
Toward the Next Phase
The ZOG myth, like all powerful conspiracies, survives by adaptation. It now lives in coded language and internet humor. It recruits from across ideologies. It infects memes and politics alike. Its logic has become part of the online operating system.
But its most effective proof, in the eyes of its believers, is still to come.
In Part III of this series, we turn to the scandal of Jeffrey Epstein—a real criminal, tied to real elites, whose death in prison and mysterious connections have made him a lodestone for conspiracy narratives. His case, folded into the Mossad theory and expanded by the same tropes that power ZOG, became a Rosetta Stone for understanding the psychology of belief in the age of distrust.