7 hours ago, paddypower said:

. Black is white and while is black? Who just attacked who? Who just bbq'd the religious head (albeit the devil in disguise) of less than 50% of the Muslim religion. ?

@paddypower I'd love to answer your questions, but they don't make much sense. What the hell do you mean? Were you nipping at the poitin when you posted your questions? PUI (posting under the influence) is never a good idea.

7 hours ago, paddypower said:

sorry to disappoint you. quote from the Israeli PM's press conference last evening : 'Israel is being attacked because it is a Jewish state. Antisemitism knows no limits or boundaries'

That's a standard line from Netanyahu. He posted it on his official Facebook and X accounts in response to the terrorist attack on a Detroit synagogue. It's also obviously true.

https://x.com/IsraeliPM/status/2032231838316413194

7 hours ago, paddypower said:

.. the Israeli PM is, to put it mildly, crazy - but crazy like a fox. This was something completely irrational, as that religious head (granted his supreme evilness) issued TWO Fatwa's, forbidding the development of nuclear weapons. As a result - replace him with a man who is far more fanatical,, is pro nuclear bomb development, and has seen his dad, wife and son toasted on the Israeli BBQ?

Do you understand the meaning of the idiom, "Crazy like a fox?" If Netanyahu is "completely irrational," he's just crazy and not at all like a fox.

The TWO fatwas to which you refer date to the 1990s and the text had never been made public by Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The extent of the fatwas is unknown and they may have forbidden the use of nuclear weapons but not their development. In any case, Khamenei's son would still be bound by the fatwas, since fatwas don't die with the issuer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Khamenei's_fatwa_against_nuclear_weapons

First of all, thank you (I clicked a thanks) for your elaborate answer.

Now to the points we mostly disagree:

On 3/13/2026 at 10:25 PM, Evil Penevil said:

You and I have different concepts regarding the truth about Israel. I could flip your questions and ask you the same thing. You have obviously given a lot of time and effort to studying the situation in the Middle East. How is it possible a socially-conscious person like you is incapable of seeing the truth, i.e., Israel is NOT committing genocide or war crimes?

It may surprise you, that I too have my doubts about Israel committing a genocide, simply because I don´t think it´s Palestinian life they are after, it´s their land and property.

But I am pretty much sure that Israel is committing war crimes; just to name a few:

• Indiscriminate attacks of civilians, residential buildings, schools, universities hospitals, etc.

• Airstrikes on refugee camps

• Murdering aid workers

• Flour massacre

• World Central Kitchen drone strikes

• Gaza aid distribution massacres

• intentional targeting of preteen children with gunshot wounds to the head or chest

• mass graves like the one with 283 bodies at Khan Younis's Nasser medical complex, some of the bodies were found with their hands and feet tied

• sexual violence and torture against detainees

• cutting off water access

• starvation

• crop destruction

• murder of medics in record numbers

• killing of journalists in record numbers

• Rafah paramedic massacre

• Forced evacuation

• Looting

• Use of white phosphorus on civilians

• Killing of surrendered people

• Use of human shields

On 3/13/2026 at 10:25 PM, Evil Penevil said:

I have written the following words several times before on this forum: The Palestinians who died in Gaza were killed in military attacks aimed at taking out Hamas' fighters, weapons' depots, tunnels, etc.  The heavy loss of civilians is tragic, but it is in part an inevitable consequence of warfare in a densely populated urban area. Civilian deaths in Gaza are mostly down to Hamas hiding its operatives and equipment among civilians, which puts the blame on Hamas and not the IDF.

And I have asked many times before, if my neighbor comes over to my place, starts an argument and before I know it knocks me down breaking my nose and I later walk over to his place and beat him, his wife and kids including the newborn baby into coma, would any judge release me, when I state that he started the conflict and used his family as human shields?

There are so called principles of distinction and proportionality in the laws of war and Israel has broken them from day 1.

On 3/13/2026 at 10:25 PM, Evil Penevil said:

In WWII, Allied strategic bombing killed hundreds of thousands of German and Japanese civilians, maybe a million in total. The fire bombing of Tokyo killed 100,000 in one night. This wasn't considered to be a war crime, much less genocide, because the civilian deaths were not intentional but "collateral damage."  The goal was to destroy the enemy's capacity to wage war, not to eliminate Germans or Japanese as a nation. The situation Israel faces in Gaza is the same.

Your truth about Israel is different than mine. In two words, we disagree.

Just to correct a factual error: neither I nor any other living person is a Semite. I wrote about this before, too.

The situation is absolutely NOT the same:

In WW II countries were fighting each other, all of them with armies, tanks, fighter planes, war ships, you name it and when civilian areas were hit, most of the time because they were next to some military facility.

It was necessary to hit them in order to stop any further production of weapons and yes, collateral damage was sometimes unavoidable but the whole goal was to make the opponent defenseless and to force him to capitulate.

Israel has tanks, ships, fighter jets, bombs, you name it - Hamas has none of that. They have outdated machine guns and some museum grade rockets with which from 2004 to 2014, they were only able to kill 27 Israeli civilians and 5 IDF soldiers. That´s 32 Israelis in 10 years.

Israel has destroyed 92% of all buildings in Gaza and killed around 100.000 always justifying it with Hamas fighters or weapon depots among civilians yet has given almost no proof for that.

I am sorry but this is not a simple disagreement between you and me; it`s a total denial of facts by you.

We are both no experts on that but as a matter of facts practically ALL experts are in agreement about Israel committing war crimes.

That should be a wake up call for you but instead of that you prefer to remain in your comfortable denial bubble.

At least it was for me. My country committed the first genocide of the last century, the extermination of the Herero and the Nama people in German South West Africa (now Namibia). It committed the most horrific genocide in human history known as Holocaust were innocent people were murdered on an industrial level and it is accused of complicity in the first genocide of the 21century.

What do you mean by "neither I nor any other living person is a Semite".

If that is true why is "anti-Semitic" almost seen as a brand of Cain?

I remember sitting in a bar some years ago here in Rawai, and some German guy kicking off at the owner telling him to get that Turkish flag down,

On 3/13/2026 at 10:06 AM, Scouse123 said:

This was unnecessary and unwelcome harassment.

With all the tensions and war going on in the world, this sort of behavior is to be expected and it's naive to think it will never happen.

I nearly got attacked in China once for no reason just because of the political tensions between the west and china. After all, if the news keeps repeating that China is an enemy of the west, you don't think a few chinese guys want to kick your head in when you're in their country?

I nearly got attacked by a Moroccan guy back home for no reason. Maybe he's holding a grudge against westerners in general.

You need to keep your wits about you and get out when you sense hostility, NOT expect people never to be hostile.

Woke sickness has spread to Thais

Amazed that the Thai owner would reject business

On 3/14/2026 at 7:09 PM, Somjot said:

First of all, thank you (I clicked a thanks) for your elaborate answer.

Now to the points we mostly disagree:

And thank you for your reply. You have made your position clear on Israel, the IDF and Israel and I have made my position clear on the same points. I don't feel there's any need for further discussion, as we will just keep going round and round.

I am going to leave things where they are. Thanks again for your previous posts. It's always best to take part in exchanges that don't involve name-calling or insults.

On 3/14/2026 at 7:09 PM, Somjot said:

What do you mean by "neither I nor any other living person is a Semite".

If that is true why is "anti-Semitic" almost seen as a brand of Cain?

The word "Semitic" or "Semite" is considered obsolete when referring to race or ethnicity. There are Semitic languages (mainly Hebrew and Arabic) but no Semitic people in modern times. In fact, there has never been a shared Semitic identity among Semitic-speaking peoples.

When posters write that "antisemitism" refers to both Jews and Arabs, they are mistaken. In German and English, the word "antisemitism" and all its derivatives have only referred to hatred of Jews and never included Arabs. You can read about it in detail here:   https://www.britannica.com/topic/Semite

The word "anti-Semitism" or "antisemitism" entered the English language in1881 from the German Antisemitismus, which had been coined by Wilhelm Marr, a German journalist and agitator who thought it sounded more scientific and academic than the older Judenhaß  ("Jew hatred").  Marr himself is regarded as the "father of modern antisemitism,"  although he apparently renounced his anti-Jewish beliefs as an old man.  https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/wilhelm-marr

On 3/15/2026 at 7:35 AM, save the frogs said:

With all the tensions and war going on in the world, this sort of behavior is to be expected and it's naive to think it will never happen.

I nearly got attacked in China once for no reason just because of the political tensions between the west and china. After all, if the news keeps repeating that China is an enemy of the west, you don't think a few chinese guys want to kick your head in when you're in their country?

I nearly got attacked by a Moroccan guy back home for no reason. Maybe he's holding a grudge against westerners in general.

You need to keep your wits about you and get out when you sense hostility, NOT expect people never to be hostile.

I believe you and there are some people out there with weird ideas.

Social media hammering fake news adds to the problems.

Posts of a low value have been removed:

13. Low-Value Posts - Posts that add no written contribution are not allowed.

    This includes emoji-only replies, very short comments, memes, GIFs, screenshots, or embedded social media posts without explanation or opinion.

On 3/14/2026 at 1:56 PM, Scouse123 said:

We know full well who is murdering women and children wilfully and it isn't the Israeli

Remind me of the score to date: approx. 1200 in that despicable act by the cowardly Hamas and 50-70K in Gaza. Even if we assume 20,000 Hamas were killed, that leaves 30-50k of 'collateral damage' by the IDF. In Israel, they call them ''dogs''...This week - during one of Israel's infamous perfidious ''ceasefires'' 650 citizens of Gaza were killed.

On 3/14/2026 at 1:52 PM, Scouse123 said:

And you trust their Fatwas?

Absolutely ridiculous.

you're missing the point - actually, you are deflecting - a classic pro-Israel skill. Fatwas are religious edicts, you don't go to Muslim hell if you don't follow them. However, the EFFECT, has been to allow enrichment and to deny the development of a bomb. MY belief has nothing to do with it. The fact is, Fatwas are effective, since Iran's military has not developed a bomb, since the first first fatwa was issued in 2003 by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's Fatwa. It banned the production, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons. What you should be worried about is, the head of the snake has been cut off - with the result that the new guy (whose father, mother, wife and son were just wiped out) is going to unleash Hell. All thanks to Desperate Don.

20 hours ago, Evil Penevil said:

And thank you for your reply. You have made your position clear on Israel, the IDF and Israel and I have made my position clear on the same points. I don't feel there's any need for further discussion, as we will just keep going round and round.

I am going to leave things where they are. Thanks again for your previous posts. It's always best to take part in exchanges that don't involve name-calling or insults.

I couldn`t agree more. Peaceful is always the best way to debate and insults tell more about the person, who insulted than about those who were insulted.

And I´ll respect your decision about further discussions on that topic.

I hope you will not consider it rude if I make a final comment about that:

I fully understand and support the urge of Jewish people to have a place for themselves, were they can live, thrive and most importantly defend themselves in case, like so many times in history, anyone intends to harm them.

But what is going on right now has completely gotten out of hand and for the sake of not only the Palestinian people but also the state of Israel, it must stop.

The fact that you stand for your country and your people in these difficult times speaks for you.

I am just not sure if your approach to certain things is really the best way to support them.

The first step to solve any problem is to acknowledge that there is a problem.

I don´t expect any answer to this; I only hope you might reflect on it in a quiet moment.

On 3/17/2026 at 9:44 AM, paddypower said:

Remind me of the score to date: approx. 1200 in that despicable act by the cowardly Hamas and 50-70K in Gaza. Even if we assume 20,000 Hamas were killed, that leaves 30-50k of 'collateral damage' by the IDF. In Israel, they call them ''dogs''...This week - during one of Israel's infamous perfidious ''ceasefires'' 650 citizens of Gaza were killed.

you're missing the point - actually, you are deflecting - a classic pro-Israel skill. Fatwas are religious edicts, you don't go to Muslim hell if you don't follow them. However, the EFFECT, has been to allow enrichment and to deny the development of a bomb. MY belief has nothing to do with it. The fact is, Fatwas are effective, since Iran's military has not developed a bomb, since the first first fatwa was issued in 2003 by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's Fatwa. It banned the production, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons. What you should be worried about is, the head of the snake has been cut off - with the result that the new guy (whose father, mother, wife and son were just wiped out) is going to unleash Hell. All thanks to Desperate Don.

If they have no intention of building a nuclear weapon, why are they enriching uranium way beyond any usage required for energy or peaceful purposes?