Can you feel the pressure? The relentless push of global turmoil — war, terror, the presidential election — into our local life? Your Editorial Team has, and we offer for your consideration an incident which may serve as a warning of worse to come.

In Kingston, the widening gyre of the Israel-Hamas war and the very strong feelings it’s inspired in some made its mark on the wall of Congregation Emanuel. Just after the congregation had finished celebrating Purim, a holiday marking the escape of the Jewish people from the clutches of a murderous bureaucrat, a person or persons unknown affixed a poster reading “F—k Israel on the synagogue’s exterior wall.

Tensions over Israel vs. Palestine are not new around here; it’s safe to say Ulster County residents have over the years debated the issue in letters to the editor, comments on websites and personal conversations more intensely than those any other county in the Mid-Hudson Valley. While sometimes things get both personal and heated, the poster incident feels very much like a crossed line. To everybody’s credit, Uptown hosted two large demonstrations on the issue and while there was tension — and an alleged barge-in at Pat Ryan’s office — there was no violence.

The poster incident wasn’t violent insofar as no one was injured. But it was violent insofar as it pressed home a vulgar insult to the Jewish state in one of Kingston’s most prominent centers of Jewish life. In that light, it seems to your Editorial Team that the intellectual line between being against Zionism and being antisemitic (if such a line does in fact exist) isn’t very relevant in this case. The poster wasn’t affixed to a synagogue wall to make an argument about American foreign policy in the Middle East, or to decry Lord Balfour’s proclamation. It was placed where it was placed so their Jewish neighbors, who they assume to largely be in support of Israel, would see it and feel hurt, anger, fear and shame. The message the poster was intended to send to the larger community is just as clear: We have marked the people who worship here, and they’re to be despised for what (we assume) they think.

This kind of message needs to be answered by another one from the community: “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney … ”

Whoever did this needs to be brought to justice. This is a universal principle — we’d have the same position if any religion or ethnicity were attacked in this manner. New York’s hate crime statutes exist for a reason, and we feel they’re entirely appropriate in this case.

But as we seek to hold the culprit accountable, we as a community need to remember we're accountable too. Accountable for doing what needs to be done to stop the kind of hate we see elsewhere take root here at home.