Intelligent, entertaining, and occasionally guilty of virulent anti-Semitism, Pat Buchanan has outdone himself when it comes to the latter, with his recent comments comparing former Nazi John Demjanjuk with Jesus. It’s worse than the fact that the comparison is, as Menachem Z. Rosensaft has pointed out, “obscene”.
Buchanan’s comments reach back almost 2,000 years and resurrect the ugliest and most deadly anti-Semitic tropes – ideas which have caused the deaths of millions over the centuries and could do the same again. In making his comments, Buchanan should be seen as nothing less than an accessory to murder after the fact — if not legally, then morally.
Think that I am exaggerating of over-reacting? Calling Demjanjuk the “American Dreyfus“, here’s what Pat had to say:

(Demjanjuk is) “the sacrificial lamb whose blood washes away the stain of Germany’s sins.” He went to write that the “spirit” behind the U.S. Justice Department’s efforts to bring Demjanjuk to justice is “the same satanic brew of hate and revenge that drove another innocent Man up Calvary that first Good Friday 2,000 years ago.”

Whether Demjnajuk is suspected Nazi mass-murderer Ivan the Terrible or not, and whether prosecuting broken down old men for crimes committed more than 50 years ago makes sense, are not the issues here. The former is a real question and I have previously questioned the wisdom of such prosecutions. The issue here is Buchanan stirring the truly satanic brew which nourishes hatred and violence against the Jewish people for “killing God”.
So I congratulate Mr. Buchanan on identifying the correct metaphor of poison being used. Now I invite him to look in the mirror and see that he is the one who is peddling it. To paraphrase a line from the New Testament, our blood is now upon his hands.