Biden Greets Saudi Crown Prince with Fist Bump

President Biden was seen greeting Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman on Friday with a fist bump during his trip to the Middle East. 

The greeting came amid speculation over whether Biden would shake the hand of bin Salman, who approved the 2018 operation that killed journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to U.S. intelligence assessments. Khashoggi, who was a Washington Post columnist, was killed after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to collect documents for his wedding.

Biden said Friday that he discussed Khashoggi’s murder with the crown prince, saying his message was “straightforward and direct.”

The president said bin Salman claimed he was “not personally responsible for it” though Biden “indicated I thought he was.”

After the meeting, Khashoggi’s fiancée suggested her late partner would have responded to Biden fist bumping the crown prince by saying, “Hey @POTUS, Is this the accountability you promised for my murder? The blood of MBS’s next victim is on your hands.”

While campaigning in 2019, Biden called Khashoggi’s death “flat-out murder” and called for consequences.

“There’s very little social redeeming value in the present government in Saudi Arabia,” Biden said in 2019 at a Democratic debate. “They have to be held accountable.”

In 2020, two years after the journalist was murdered, Biden released a statement calling for “accountability” and saying as president he would “reassess our relationship with the Kingdom.”

After U.S. intelligence assessed that the crown prince had ordered the journalist’s killing, Biden said that he would make Saudi Arabia “the pariah that they are.”

However, sources told the Washington Post that Biden and his senior aides later decided that the United States’ security and energy relationship with Saudi Arabia was too important to isolate the country.

Biden ignored a question on Friday about whether Saudi Arabia is still a pariah.

He wrote in an essay last week that the goal of his trip is to “reorient — but not rupture — relations with a country that’s been a strategic partner for 80 years.”

The president dodged questions earlier this week about whether he would bring up Khashoggi’s death during his meeting with the crown prince.

“I have never been quiet about talking about human rights,” Biden told reporters after a meeting with Israeli prime minister Yair Lapid in Jerusalem. “The reason I am going to Saudi Arabia though, is much broader, it’s to promote U.S. interests,” he said.

Ahead of the trip, the White House had declined to say whether Biden would be photographed meeting bin Salman. Before Biden landed in Israel, White House officials said the president would aim to minimize direct contact, including hand shakes, while in the Middle East to mitigate the spread of Covid-19, according to NPR.

The interaction came one day after Biden similarly fist bumped Lapid.

“I wouldn’t say there’s a change,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said of Biden’s new efforts to minimize contact. “We are saying that we’re going to try to minimize contact as much as possible. But also, there are precautions that we are taking because this is up to his doctor.”

However, NPR notes that Biden shook hands and gave hugs in a crowd of hundreds of lawmakers and their families at the annual congressional picnic on Tuesday before he departed for his trip.