Dan Cohen and Max Blumenthal are in Gaza and they report that Israeli soldiers carved Stars of David in homes in the decimated neighborhood of Shujaiya. “Soldiers carved Stars of David into homes in Shujaiya,” Dan Cohen writes, with this photograph:

Max Blumenthal posts the photo below, which has been retweeted nearly 600 times, and writes: “Soldiers vandalized the homes they occupied with this symbol. What sort of attitude might this encourage?”

I don’t doubt that soldiers did this, though the reporters surely don’t have direct evidence. I saw similar graffiti during a visit to Gaza in 2009, after Cast Lead ground invasion. On that occasion, too, Israeli soldiers carved a star of David in fields in the south of Gaza. Richard Goldstone documented it and said that it was one of the most upsetting things he’d encountered there.

That Star of David was said to be 60 meters in diameter, per the UN Institute for Training and Research.

Blumenthal asks what attitude this encourages. When I was in Gaza in 2009, I saw Star of David graffiti on garbage cans, evidently put there by Palestinians:

(Whether this is anti-Semitic brings up the usual convoluted philosophical discussion. You could say that the Israeli soldiers’ graffiti is anti-Semitic. My concern is that we hold Americans to account on Islamophobia when they conflate murderous ideas of radical Islamists with Islam. We expect them to make a distinction between the religion and extremists who cite that religion.)