On November 5, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said during a televised speech that Saudi Arabia forced Lebanon Prime Minister Saad Hariri to resign. Nasrallah added that the fact that Hariri announced his resignation from Saudi Arabia, and some words in his speech proved that the decision had been taken by Saudi Arabia.
“It is clear that the resignation was a Saudi decision that was imposed on Prime Minister Hariri. It was not his intention, not his wish and not his decision,” Nasrallah said in his speech.
The Hezbollah leader revealed that Hariri resignation shocked Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun, Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament Nabih Berri and even the MPs of the Future Movement, which is led by Hariri himself. Nasrallah also stressed that Hezbollah was satisfied with Hariri work as the prime minister and didn’t want him to resign.
According to Nasrallah, Saudi Arabia could force Hariri to resign because it was not satisfied with his work in Lebanon or even due to the current internal problems in Saudi Arabia itself.
Nasrallah’s second theory could be true because in the same day when Hariri resigned, Saudi Arabia King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud ordered the arrest of several businessmen and members of the Saudi royal family after accusing them with corruption. Hariri himself is a Saudi citizen, and a businessman who have financial relationships with most of the Saudi figures who were arrested.
In the end of his speech, Nasrallah called on the Lebanese politicians and people to calm down and to deal patiently and wisely with this crisis. Nasrallah also called rumors about a possible Saudi attack on Lebanon or Hezbollah “illogical”, and said that even Israeli won’t go into war with Lebanon for Saudi Arabia.