It is sometimes quite extraordinary how political myths can be revived and made to flourish at the most convenient moments. Writing in the Washington Post recently, Labour MP Denis MacShane revealed a picture of a widespread, virulent anti-semitism that few, if any, of his readers will be familiar with. “The new anti-Semitism,” he tells us, “threatens all of humanity.” “Hatred of Jews”, has even “reached new heights in Europe”.

Of course “New heights” would seem to imply that the problem has never been worse, including during the 1930s. A pretty strong claim, in other words. Can that really be what MacShane means? Indeed it can. As he comments later on, “Europe is reawakening its old demons, but today there is a difference. The old anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism have morphed into something more dangerous.”

So how does this dangerous new anti-semitism manifest itself? As Macshane tells us in one particularly revealing paragraph, “denunciation” of and “contempt” for those who “express any support for Israel” constitutes “anti-Jewish discourse”. (Such sentiments are expressed “at dinner parties of modish London” – a phenomenon which has been thoughtfully dissected elsewhere.) Then again, there are also “militant anti-Jewish students” fuelled by what MacShane calls “far-left hate”, who are “seeking to prevent Jewish students from expressing their opinions”.

This new anti-semitism, writes MacShane, is now “officially sanctioned state ideology”, and is “being turned into a mobilizing and organizing force to recruit thousands in a new crusade – the word is chosen deliberately – to eradicate Jewishness from the region whence it came”. The President of Iran is apparently “the most odious example of this new state-sanctioned anti-Semitism.”

It’s worth pausing to consider the factual basis of this claim. Iran is itself home to a Jewish community numbering some 25,000 – who, according to the well-respected Christian Science Monitor, “human rights activists confirm … are not persecuted because of their religion”. “Iranian Jews have a comfortable Jewish life,” according to Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian-born Middle East analyst now living in Israel, cited in one Jewish daily. “Ahmadinejad,” the same article points out, “has been careful not to single out Iran’s Jews, and his office even donated money to Tehran’s Jewish hospital.”

If Ahmadinejad is indeed “the most odious” example of a campaign of hate aiming “to eradicate Jewishness from the region”, then he seems to be failing spectacularly even within the borders of his own country. Iranian Jews, it was reported recently, have responded with contempt to financial offers aimed at inducing mass emigration to Israel. And according to the Wall Street Journal, a “state-funded production” on Iranian television, which is “Sympathetic to [the] Plight Of Jews During the Holocaust” is now “the most expensive show ever aired on the Islamic republic’s state-owned television”, and has drawn millions of viewers. So much for a “state ideology” of anti-semitism.

MacShane goes on to cite the “notorious anti-Jewish articles in the charters of Hamas and Hezbollah” as evidence that “hatred of Jews is an integral element of a new ideology rising to prominence in many regions of the world.” He fails to recall that Hamas’s charter was penned in 1988, and Hezbollah’s manifesto in 1985 – hardly evidence of a “new ideology”. Quite apart from which, the idea that Hamas’s charter can be cited as evidence of the nature of the organisation today is simply ridiculous. As one Oxford scholar has recently put it:

“Particularly fixated by the [charter], and more generally by Hamas’s written and spoken words, the critics of Hamas have tended to overlook, even ignore, its behaviors, and particularly its post-politically integrated behaviors. Because of this myopic approach, many have failed to notice the profound mismatch between rhetoric and reality characterizing the Hamas of today.

“Indeed, because of this over-preoccupation with words, Hamas’s ideological and behavioral transformations, particularly those occurring subsequent to its integration into the political process, have gone unnoticed. Instead of recognizing that the Hamas of today is decisively more pragmatic, politically-inclined and compromising than the Hamas of 1988 … many in the West, as well as in Israel, continue to classify Hamas on the basis of its anachronistic founding Charter; a document hurriedly drafted nearly twenty years ago, under a unique set of historical circumstances (the First Intifada, or “uprising”), and by a different type of leadership (religious sheikhs), who didn’t, as has otherwise always been the case, consult Hamas’s wider constituency.(7) According to one scholar of Hamas [Azzam Tamimi in Hamas: Unwritten Chapters], the 1988 Charter “has never been an accurate reflection of either the philosophy or the political standpoint of the movement,” an argument seemingly corroborated by the fact that, while often cited by Hamas’s critics, the Charter is rarely referenced or even mentioned by its supporters, members or leaders; a phenomenon particularly characteristic of the post-electoral Hamas.(8)

“Importantly, this “problematic and embarrassing” document fails to acknowledge Hamas’s various transformational evolutions – political, intellectual, behavioral and otherwise; and thus, continues to distract Hamas’s critics, who unfortunately often double as the Palestinians’ subsidizers, from objectively evaluating Hamas on the basis of its post-Charter words, documents, policy proposals and most importantly, behaviors. Were such an objective evaluation to be made … such critics would undoubtedly find that the Hamas of today bears almost no resemblance to the Hamas of 1988.(9)”

A similarly pragmatic orientation seems to apply in the case of Hezbollah. Far from pursuing the destruction of Israel, the group has expressed a position of essential neutrality on the question of a two-state settlement between Israel and Palestine, as an exchange with Hassan Nasrallah revealed in 2003:

““At the end, this is primarily a Palestinian matter. I, like any other person, may consider what is happening to be right or wrong. . . . I may have a different assessment, but at the end of the road no one can go to war on behalf of the Palestinians, even if that one is not in agreement with what the Palestinians agreed on. Of course, it would bother us that Jerusalem goes to Israel.”

“I asked, “But if there was a deal?”

““Let it happen,” he answered. “I would not say O.K. I would say nothing.””

MacShane’s article, then, is founded on extreme hyperbole, claims that lack any credibility, and conflations of anti-semitism and criticism of Israel. So what exactly is the point of it all? A particularly apt characterisation might be found in the phrase that the MP himself employs: “officially sanctioned state ideology … being turned into a mobilizing and organizing force to recruit thousands in a new crusade”.

If you think that’s a little over the top, take a look at this recent, credible report on the pressure for an anti-Iranian propaganda campaign being piled onto the American media from the very top of the political tree. Indeed one paper, the Columbus Dispatch, seems to be falling over itself in its enthusiasm for de-humanising Iranians, whom it depicted – in one disgustingly racist cartoon last week – as insects scurrying forth from the mouth of a drain.

Would MacShane himself back a war with Iran? One can’t be certain. But he will certainly not be hurting his political career by sending the right signals, on whichever side of the Atlantic he chooses to do so. For those who care about recognising and combating genuine anti-semitism, on the other hand, the hysterical exaggerations of MacShane and his ilk represent a dangerous tactic of “crying wolf”. We would do well not to indulge them.