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Mixed messages from touring Muslim lecturer

ONE of the Muslim world’s best-known and most successful motivational speakers, Tareq Al Suwaidan, is about to start another tour of Australia, following a sell-out visit two years ago.

He is a man with two very different messages, however.

His opening address, this Saturday, will be at the Robert Blackwood hall at Monash University in Melbourne, before further lectures in Melbourne and Sydney, finishing on June 18.

Dr Suwaidan – his doctorate is in petroleum engineering, from Tulsa University in the US, where he lived for many years – is now based in his home country, Kuwait, with his wife and six children.

The 58-year-old earns more than $1 million a year from his talks and TV shows.

His CD Lives of the Prophets has sold well over two million copies, and his two-day management courses cost $500 a head.

His Australian tour is organised by Human Appeal International, which describes itself as “a non-governmental humanitarian organisation seeking funds from supporters to assist in providing services to thousands of poor and needy people”.
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Dr Suwaidan – who lectures in English in Australia – is a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Kuwait, and general manager of Al-Resalah (The Message), an Arabic language satellite TV station funded by Prince al-Waleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia.

He presents himself to English-speaking audiences as moderate, a supporter of free speech and freedom of religion.

But what he has said elsewhere points to a darker program.

He asked rhetorically on an Arabic TV station a year ago: “Is what I am doing any less important than jihad?”

In an interview for Al-Quds, a TV station affiliated with Hamas, he said 10 weeks ago: “I can change the positions of some Westerners, but at the end of the day, power lies with the politicians, who are influenced by two things only: money and the media, both of which are controlled by the Jews.

“So we must not rely on Western aid or on Western popular sympathy. These are minor things. We rely upon Allah and then upon our armed resistance in obtaining our rights.”

He said his foremost cause is that of Palestine and Jerusalem. “The most dangerous thing facing the Muslims is not the (Arab) dictatorships. The absolutely most dangerous thing is the Jews. They are the greatest enemy.”

At a conference of the Islamic Circle of North America in 2000 he said: “We must tell the West that we are extending a hand of peace now, but it will not be so for long.

“Even if a civilisation is ready to crumble – like the West, with all the characteristics of deterioration of past fallen empires – it will not fall until we, the Muslims, strive to give it that last push, the last straw that will break the camel’s back.”

Ali Kazak, the then representative of the Palestinian Authority in Australia, told ABC TV’s Lateline in 2003: “I have stopped giving (Human Appeal International) any donations. People should not give a contribution until it makes it public and clear as to how much it collects and where the money is going.”

Five years after this, Israel’s Defence Minister Ehud Barak banned 36 funds around the world, including HAI Australia, that were deemed “part of Hamas’s fund-raising network”.

But Sydney-based Bashar al-Jamal, the Australian manager of HAI, said yesterday: “We believe strongly that Dr Suwaidan is one of the heads of moderation in the Middle East, and his approach is friendly, trying to tackle things from a smart, peaceful approach.

“Two years ago he really contributed positively, and our community benefited from him a lot. It’s crucial for us as a humanitarian organisation that we invite people promoting moderation and harmony, and those ethical values we are really behind.”

He said that as the leader of HAI since it started in Australia in 1991, “I’d challenge anyone if they can show we have any relation with Hamas”.

“This (the claims of Hamas links) is just lies and accusations.”

He said HAI had started working with Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan.

Dr Suwaidan is speaking on Monday at a “Syria fundraising dinner” in the Prime Minister’s constituency in Altona North.

The HAI website explains that “Syria is in the midst of a tragic crisis as a result of the internal conflict . . . The cold winter is taking its toll on their hope for peace and they are relying on you to help them”.

A spokeswoman for Monash University said: “Monash is not hosting this conference nor does it have any affiliation with this organisation. The booking was made and charged as per any booking for the Robert Blackwood Hall by community groups etc. We do not endorse the topics or presenters, and have simply provided a venue space.”

Hamas’s Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades have been proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Australia, but not the Hamas organisation itself.

SOURCE:THE AUSTRALLAN

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