Racist or Misinterpreted?

There is a whole scandal going on right now with a visiting professor in Australia who made talked about Islamic immigration to Australia.

“You have to infiltrate all those circles where the Muslim radicals operate, to arrest them, and to limit immigration into western countries where these Muslims, who are bent on destroying western civilisation ... to limit immigration, even students who apply to come from Islamic countries to the West,” he said.

“It serves no purpose when you have this home-grown terrorist, who has been preparing for years to blow up undergrounds in London, and all you do is lead a war of words. The war of words doesn’t help. There is a whole gamut of actions that are possible in order to check this threat of Islam.”

I might want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but due to another "Australian" using the misunderstood defense, I am disinclined to do so. Sheik Hilaly himself:

Children and mothers are crying. Sons of Islam, there is a war of infidels taking place everywhere. The true man is the boy who opposes Israeli tanks with strength and faith. The boy who, despite his mother’s objections, goes out to war to become a martyr like his elder brother...
...Don’t be surprised if one day you hear the Muezzin calling for prayer and saying “Allah Akbar (Allah is Great)” from the top of the white house. September 11 is God’s work against oppressors.
-ABC

If you haven't heard about him I suggest you read these.

On the other hand, we really do have some misinterpreted Israeli academics lately. A Bar Ilan Professor writing about blood libels


Another important factor in deciding how comments should be considered is if there are other people saying the same thing who are clearly not racist.
And there are.

After a suicide truck bomb killed more than 132 people and wounded hundreds in a Baghdad market a few weeks ago, the head of the Shiite-controlled Interior Ministry's explosives department, Maj. Gen. Jihad al-Jabiri, told state-run Iraqi television: "I call on the government to deport (foreign) Arabs immediately."
...
A day after the Interior Ministry general asked for Arabs' deportation, some Shiite members of parliament echoed the call. That led to a dispute after the parliament speaker, a Sunni Arab, retorted that both Arabs "and others" should be deported — a reference to Iranians. Many Sunnis here fear Iranians are infiltrating Iraq.
- Yahoo News

I guess the context is very different in this case. After all we have no problems with Jews making Jewish jokes, or blacks making black jokes etc. Then again Sunnis and Shiites aren't one big happy family. Maybe they deserve equal condemnation as our visiting professor, or maybe we can forgive them because of the pressures of a war.

So there you have it...make up your own mind, but I hope I gave you some directions to think in