Saturday, November 04, 2017

Hariri resignation in Beirut

It is funny: people of the Saudi and Israeli lobbies on social media are jubilant about Saad Hariri's resignation (from Riyadh, no less and through Saudi regime media) and treating the matter as if it was a purely Lebanese matter.  The resignation was days in the making.  Saudi minister (for Gulf affairs but he also seems to be in charge of Lebanese affairs as well) has been threatening the Lebanese people and government for many days and warning of an impending action.  In fact, he threatened hours before Hariri resignation that Saudi Arabia will "cut off" the hands of Iran--which was the same expression used by Hariri in the speech which was prepared for him.  Hariri was sitting with Hizbullah ministers and defending the political arrangement in which all parties were represented against critics in his quarters.  He also met with a senior Iranian delegation HOURS before his resignation (above) (the delegated was headed by Ali Akbar Welayeti, who said after the meeting that it was "constructive").  Just after the meeting, Hariri was summoned to Riyadh and he took a selfti with Minister Sabhan (the latter posted it on Twitter (above) and said it was after a long meeting), and then the speech of resignation was aired on Saudi media.  Its text was counter to all the speeches that Hariri has been giving for many months.   The best part is that Saudi regime media announced that there was an assassination attempt on Hariri's life just before he departed for Saudi Arabia.  The pro-Saudi branch of the Lebanese security services promptly told Lebanese media that they never heard of any of that and that they were not sources for this fable.