Now I’ve heard everything. Richard Toye, a lecturer at Homerton College, Cambridge, claims to have unearthed an article written for Winston Churchill in 1937 (but not published) in which he — one of the men responsible for the creation of Israel — describes Jews as “Hebrew bloodsucker” moneylenders, says that they are “partly responsible for the antagonism for which they suffer” and argues that that “the Jew is different. He looks different. He thinks differently . . . He refuses to be absorbed.”

Mr Toye is careful not to label Churchill an antiSemite, but he does everything bar that. There’s just one problem with the story of Mr Toye’s “discovery” — Sir Martin Gilbert, Churchill’s biographer, referred to the article in a book more than 20 years ago, pointing out that it was ghosted by a member of Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists. Churchill took one look at it and refused to have it published because he disagreed with it. One wonders why Mr Toye failed to consult Sir Martin’s book, in which the historian clearly refers to the article.

This silly story is of little intrinsic interest. But it illustrates a wider issue about claims of antiSemitism, neatly following days after a full-blown such accusation. On Newsnight last week the rabbi of Lord Levy’s synagogue, Yitzchak Schochet, was interviewed about his congregant’s involvement in the cash-for-honours affair. Quite rightly, the rabbi condemned the anti-Semitic tone of some of the coverage, such as the reports which have mentioned — nudge, nudge — that Lord Levy’s middle name is Abraham.

So far so sensible. But then, preposterously, Rabbi Schochet went on to argue that the very basis of the investigation into Lord Levy was antiSemitic; as if he was somehow the victim of a plot against him by the gentile establishment because he is a Jew.

None of us has a clue if Lord Levy is a paragon of virtue or a crook. But the notion that the arrest of a Jew is ipso facto evidence of antiSemitism is not merely risible, it is dangerous.

Anti-Semitism is real and is on the rise. The President of Iran has said proudly that he wants to wipe Israel off the map. Here in the UK, the Community Security Trust has recorded a 31 per cent rise (from 455 to 594) in anti-Semitic race hate incidents between 2005 and 2006 — the highest total since such reports began in 1984.

When the shout of “antiSemitism” goes up every time a Jew is in trouble, it plays into the hands of the real antiSemites. In classic cry-wolf fashion, people such as Rabbi Schochet make it all the more difficult to persuade people of the very real threat.

Stephen Pollard is Chairman of the European Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism