Biden Fist Bumps With Saudi Leader Accused of Ordering Khashoggi Hit

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — President Joe Biden greeted Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with a fist bump Friday as he arrived here for a controversial meeting with the Saudi leader, attracting immediate denunciations from human rights advocates who suggested it projected acceptance and even closeness with the crown prince.

That did not appear to be Biden’s intent, and the president has long made clear his discomfort with the crown prince. After the meeting, Biden said he raised the murder of Jamal Khashoggi with the Saudi leader immediately and directly, “making clear what I thought of it at the time and what I think of it now.”

“I made my view crystal clear,” he added.

But the gesture — in an image disseminated by the Saudis — ricocheted around the internet and quickly took on a powerful symbolism ahead of a high-stakes meeting that reversed Biden’s promise to make the kingdom a “pariah.”

Biden and MBS, as he is widely called, met along with top aides at the Al Salam Royal Palace, where they were expected to address a range of issues from oil production to human rights.

Neither answered questions from reporters, who sought to ask Biden if Saudi Arabia was still a pariah and MBS if he would apologize to the family of Jamal Khashoggi, a contributing columnist for The Washington Post and outspoken critic of Saudi Arabia who was murdered in 2018.

U.S. intelligence officials have determined the crown prince ordered Khashoggi’s killing by Saudi agents, though he has denied any responsibility.

After arriving in Jeddah from Tel Aviv on Friday afternoon, Biden was greeted by a small coterie of Saudi officials as he descended Air Force One on a light purple carpet. Unlike the elaborate and effusive welcome ceremony that greeted him Wednesday when he arrived in Israel, Biden was only on the tarmac at King Abdulaziz International Airport for one minute before entering the presidential limousine and departing.

Neither the King nor his son, the crown prince, was at the airport to meet Biden. The president immediately headed to the royal palace for a bilateral meeting with the Saudi leaders, and Saudi television showed Biden fist-bumping the crown prince before that session.

At least initially, the benefits of the meeting seemed slanted in the crown prince’s favor. He has in recent years tried to transform his country from a conservative theocracy to a more complete player on the world stage, attracting tourists with a diversified economy less dependent on oil.

Biden’s visit appeared to bolster the notion that Saudi Arabia is a full and welcome member of the family of nations. Beyond the fist bump, photos quickly emerged of a bilateral U.S.-Saudi meeting not unlike dozens Biden has conducted in the last 18 months. Immediately following the meeting, Saudi officials planned to conduct a series of television interviews, trumpeting the close contact with the leader of the free world.

“It suggests the crown prince is now accepted,” Kenneth Roth, the president of Human Rights Watch, said of the photo of the two leaders bumping fists. “The only way to transform that photograph into some signal of disapproval is for Biden to speaking publicly and in detail about ongoing concerns with the crown prince’s abysmal human rights record.”

Washington Post publisher Fred Ryan issued a statement calling the fist bump “shameful,” saying it “projected a level of intimacy and comfort that delivers to MBS the unwarranted redemption he has been desperately seeking.”

The Saudi government shared multiple photos and videos of Biden’s visit, including one where a smiling Biden greeted a line of Saudi officials with fist bumps. The video then showed Mohammed exchanging fist bumps with grinning U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser.

In contrast to the apparent cordiality of the visit, Biden had made clear his discomfort with sitting face-to-face with the crown prince and repeatedly downplayed his trip to the Saudi Arabia. He said in June, for example, “I’m not going to meet with MBS.” He also described the visit to Jeddah as being not about Saudi Arabia, but rather about the Middle East more broadly.

The nature of Biden’s greeting with Mohammed was closely watched after Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, told reporters before the trip that the White House was “seeking to reduce contact and to increase masking” because of surging cases of covid-19.

But Biden quickly dispensed of any effort to keep his distance during the Middle East trip, shaking hands with top Israeli officials upon landing there on Wednesday and hugging Holocaust survivors during a visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.

Biden officials then since tried to discourage a focus on how he interacted with his counter parts with a senior administration official telling reporters, “We’re focused on the meetings, not the greetings.”

Saudis officials initially excluded two Washington Post reporters from a planned media briefing that the government was holding on Friday.

Pressed on why The Post was the only major U.S. news outlet not invited to the session, Nicolla Hewitt, a media consultant for the Saudi government, said, “I can’t engage with The Post on that,” adding, “Don’t kill me, I’m just the messenger.”

A few hours later, after Post reporters raised the matter with White House officials, Hewitt changed course, writing in an email, “Would love to be able to invite you to the roundtable tonight.”

Pressure on Biden to engage with the Saudis has mounted in recent months, despite his vow to isolate the country. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused the price of gas to skyrocket, a problem that has damaged Biden’s approval ratings and threatens to intensify the headwinds his party faces during midterm elections.

As a major oil producer, Saudi Arabia has the power to increase the world’s fuel supply, but it’s not clear that they intend to do so or whether that itself would notably affect prices at the pump, which have gone down in recent days.

The administration also views the Saudis as integral to countering the economic and political influence of Russia and China in the Middle East. At a news conference on Tuesday, Biden defended his decision to meet with the crown prince and the Saudis, saying they are central to any effort to stabilize a volatile region.

“The reason I’m going to Saudi Arabia is to promote U.S. interests in a way that I think we have an opportunity to reassert our influence in the Middle East,” Biden said, adding that not engaging with the Saudis threatens to create “a vacuum that is filled by both Russia and China.”

Khashoggi’s killing was widely condemned, including by Biden on the campaign trail, where he publicly vowed to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah.” He has expressed deep reservations to aides about meeting with the crown prince and said publicly that the country’s government has “very little social redeeming value.”

Hatice Cengiz, who was Khashoggi’s fiancee, criticized Biden’s visit on Friday, writing on Twitter an imagined account of “What Jamal Khashoggi would tweet today.” It said, “Hey @POTUS, Is this the accountability you promised for my murder? The blood of MBS’s next victim is on your hands,” with the photo of Biden and Mohammed fist-bumping.

Biden’s visit came just weeks after the crown prince traveled to Turkey, where he was greeted with state honors by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a self-proclaimed friend of Khashoggi, and once the loudest global voice demanding Saudi leaders account for the journalist’s murder.

But Erdogan, like Biden, realized the cost of freezing out the crown prince was too steep, analysts said, during an economic crisis in Turkey made worse by Saudi Arabia’s boycott of Turkish goods. At the presidential palace in Ankara, the Turkish capital, Erdogan received the crown prince, his one-time nemesis, with kisses on both cheeks.

Biden’s direct flight to Saudi Arabia from Israel, however, was historic in its own right, as he became the first president to fly that route. Former President Donald Trump had flown from Saudi Arabia to Israel.

Part of Biden’s trip centers on building ties between Israel and the broader region, and Saudi Arabia announced Friday that it will allow direct flights from Israel, which is seen as a key step in normalizing relations between the two countries.

The Saudi officials meeting Biden at the airport, according to the White House, included Prince Khalid bin Faisal bil Al Saud, governor of Makkah region, and Princess Reema bint Bandar Al Saud, the Saudi ambassador to the U.S.