How Zionism Wove Itself Into U.S. Politics

On a recent livestream, Grayzone Editor-in-Chief Max Blumenthal suggested the United States has been captured not only by foreign interests, but by one in particular. “I used to think Zionist Occupied Government was an antisemitic term,” Blumenthal opined. “Now I’m forced to see it as a pretty accurate description of the reality we live in as one nation under ZOG.” Blumenthal’s comments came amid the very public role the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), one of the largest and most influential pro-Israel lobby groups, played in defeating progressive (and pro-Palestine) Democratic Reps. Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman.

As the debate floated among leftists on social media, the argument shifted from whether this well-known neo-Nazi slogan is acceptable to use to whether it is an accurate reflection of our current reality. “[It] would appear we have a Zionist Operated Government,” a Marxist Twitter account with more than 40,000 followers suggested. “Has anyone ever noticed that?”

White nationalists fashioned the term “ZOG” to refer to an antisemitic conspiracy theory in which “Zionist” is used to reference a shadowy global cabal of Jews who have infiltrated the United States. According to this conspiracy theory, this ethnic other has now taken the reins of power to undermine national sovereignty, racial integrity, and refashion the U.S. to act in the interests of a demonic power.

Though this idea is overwhelmingly found on the right, this term’s brief revival also lends credence to concerns over antisemitism on the left and reveals a key misunderstanding of Israel’s role in global empire. Israel is not controlling U.S. policy. Instead, it is global Western empire itself determining the future of Palestine.

A Western Colony

The claim that Zionists control the U.S. can sometimes emerge from the “Israel lobby” thesis, an unfounded allegation that a network of pro-Israel lobbying groups are primarily responsible for manufacturing America’s Zionist consensus. This theory can and should be used to critique real pro-Israel lobby groups such as AIPAC and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), who use their influence to push public policy.

But this framework is also often used in more dubious ways, suggesting a small, elite cadre (usually of Jews) are pulling the strings of geopolitics. However, that framing misunderstands the way both historical Zionists and Western political leaders view Israel as an outpost for Western interests in the Middle East.

While the earliest Jewish Zionists were motivated by what they saw as perennial antisemitism, they always acknowledged their success required imperial sponsorship. Zionism’s founder, Theodor Herzl, always wanted Israel to be a client state of Western empires, even reaching out to South African colonialist Cecil Rhodes to aid this quest.

As Derek J. Penslar, William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History at Harvard University, notes in an interview with Open Democracy, Herzl “was not wedded to the notion of a Jewish state.” Instead, he “wrote about many different forms of political organization” ranging from “an autonomous province in the Ottoman Empire” to “a crown colony,” and even “a protectorate under European control.” Ultimately, Herzl and the overall Zionist movement desired “a Jewish national home … secured by international law.” Similarly, Zionist theorist Leon Pinsker never envisioned Israel as an independent country but as simply one component of a European imperial arrangement.

While Zionism often used the language of national liberation movements, which were popular at the time, this was again part of the re-nativism common to colonial movements: to imagine yourself as the land’s new indigenous people. In reality, Ashkenazi immigration was intentionally allowed by the British during their mandate between 1917 and 1948, who also positively affirmed the creation of a Jewish state as a way of maintaining a stronghold in the formerly Ottoman-controlled region. This was not out of an abundance of care for Jewish immigrants escaping pogroms and the Holocaust, but as a way of maintaining British interests in perpetuity.

In 1920, Winston Churchill, who was soon to be prime minister, noted in the Sunday Herald that supporting Zionism was a way of subverting communism. He thought he could use Zionism to refashion Jewish identity and challenge the Bolshevik revolution in Russia by offering Jews Israel instead. Since Herzl wanted to create a European-style country in the Middle East, this could become a trade hub to move Western economic interests and control the increasingly important oil trade.

The logic harkened back to European political ideas, with figures such as Napoleon Bonaparte urging Jews to “return” to Zion during his Palestine Campaign as a way of undermining British trade pathways to India. Laurence Oliphant, a Christian Zionist who encouraged survivors of the 1881 Kiev pogrom to head to Palestine, argued in 1879 that if Ashekanzim created settlements in historic Palestine (which he originally called the Plan for Gilead) then he could secure “the political and economic penetration of Palestine by Britain.”

This process became clearer after World War I when the political and economic importance of the region came into focus for Western powers, and especially so after World War II, as the U.S. became an economic hegemon. The U.S. began looking to Israel as its own outpost, acknowledging in 1966 that it could no longer remain a global watchdog and would need friends in the region. As Arab countries experienced decolonization that often challenged U.S. corporate interests, the U.S. knew it would need a regional ally they could flood with defense spending.

This became a form of “military Keynesianism” through which the Foreign Military Financing could fortify domestic consent, and then push back on the growth of Arab nationalism and insurgent movements across the Global South. “Israel proved its ability to militarily overpower its neighbors,” writes Jason Farber in a 2021 Jacobin article. “If made an ally, American power brokers realized, the United States could use Israel to exert control indirectly.”

U.S. support for Israel only escalated after the Six-Day War, when Israel became an even more important part of the U.S. strategy in the region, pushing countries like Egypt into economically subservient partnerships. By 1973 the U.S. had offered more than $492 million in aid to Israel. In 1974, Pres. Richard Nixon increased that sum to a staggering $2.6 billion. Since then, aid to Israel has steadily increased, with $3.8 billion being offered in 2023 and an additional $14.3 billion offered in April 2024. The War on Terror only further motivated a direct U.S. investment in Israel, and the U.S. has sent a slew of military leaders to Israel to train them on the methods of counterinsurgency that were then used to squash uprisings in Palestine.

As the dollar amount increased, Israel became a lynchpin of Western domination in the region. As Egyptian-born scholar Abdel Wahab El-Messiri pointed out in 1969, when the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights were newly captured, the majority of Israeli companies that invested in Africa were “owned by Western monopolies,” such as those in the U.S., Britain, France, and West Germany. “Israel as an outpost of Western capital and neo-colonialist ideologies fulfills the prophecies and aspirations of the imperialists,” El-Messiri wrote.

One Empire, Many States

If pro-Israel forces were occupying the U.S. government, that would imply there are two different interests at play, but this misunderstands the relationship between Israel and the U.S. Rather than the U.S. and Israel operating as two independent states brokering a self-serving relationship, the U.S. and Israel operate as a single hegemonic system that mobilizes the Zionist project to stabilize profits and Western interests.

All the while, the far-right movement in Israel—birthed by a colonial situation and modeled on Germanic romantic nationalism—is being allowed to decimate indigenous Palestinian communities because political leaders have decided that having a compliant Israel is better than having a rebellious Palestinian republic. The U.S. therefore ensures a state of perpetual conflict, one that has further empowered the defense sector to escalate its investments and profits.

Since 1990, Lockheed Martin, one of the largest weapons manufacturers in the U.S. and a key supplier of arms to Israel, has spent more than $330 million in lobbying efforts. In contrast, AIPAC, the Israel lobby of record, has been a minor player in lobbying, only spending $60 million during that same time period. Lockheed’s stock price skyrocketed over the past year, with one of the biggest jumps happening between Oct. 5, 2023, and Oct. 10, 2023, a trend seen among several other weapons manufacturers.

Even AIPAC has evolved, becoming less a single-issue lobbying group and more of a vessel for corporate and conservative interests, of which Israel is a piece. In the end, a pro-Israel political vision is one that fits nicely in the world of hegemonic transnational corporations that would rather provide their friends with overwhelming control over the future of the Global South than enforce universal human rights.

The strength of the “Israel lobby” actually comes from a decidedly non-Jewish source. Evangelical Christians are the largest pro-Israel constituency in the United States. In fact, Christians United for Israel is the largest pro-Israel lobbying organization in the U.S., though these Christian Zionists support Israel based on an eschatological belief that Jews must return to Israel so they can face genocide or forced conversion when Jesus returns.

As support for Israel’s genocidal mission in Gaza declines among U.S. voters, there may come a time when the U.S. will need to seek a new ally in the region. If that were to happen, it would force massive shifts in the war through the loss of unquestioned loyalty and military aid, thus opening a window to a new future in the region.

But even that positive change says nothing about the overarching political reality that the U.S. and other powerhouse countries would simply look for other potential allies that will enact their interests across the Global South. In order to get to the heart of this crisis we have to look at the ongoing systems of colonialism and capitalism themselves, which are baked into the country we live in and drive its foreign policy. We have not been captured by an alien power; this is who America has been all along.

Shane Burley is a writer and filmmaker based in Portland, Oregon. He is the co-author of Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism (Melville House Books, 2024), and the author of Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It (AK Press, 2017) and Why We Fight: Essays on Fascism, Resistance, and Surviving the Apocalypse (AK Press, 2021). Burley’s also the editor of No Pasarán: Antifascist Dispatches from a World in Crisis (AK Press, 2022). His work has been featured in NBC News, The Baffler, Al Jazeera, Jacobin, The Independent, Full Stop, Jewish Current, MSNBC, and The Daily Beast. He is a member of the News Guild, CWA Local 7901, the National Writer’s Union (UAW 1981), and the IWW. He speaks English.

Reprints and reposts: YES! Magazine encourages you to make free use of this article by taking these easy steps.

Republish This