President Biden has landed in Saudi Arabia and met with King Salman
and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. It's a delicate diplomacy for
an administration that has pledged to put human rights first but
is also dealing with the realities of Saudi influence in the region
over oil. Shiffrin begins our coverage.
The oldest American president and the Middle East youngest leader
began with a fist bump Mohammed bin Salman, known as NBS, Saudi Arabia's
defacto ruler across from President Biden and his advisors, A photo
op The Saudis wanted but ended with a reminder of the two countries.
Tension.
Jamal Kashiwagi. Will you apologize to his family, Sir? Despite the
interruption, the median scheduled for one hour, ran for three and
produced a series of announcements opening Saudi airspace to civilian
aircraft line to and from Israel.
Removing US peacekeepers from the Red Sea island, a move that could
help Saudi Israeli normalization and a Saudi commitment to extend
the truce in Yemen after President Biden said the meeting went well,
but he also raised the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
He basically said that he was not personally responsible for it.
I indicated I probably was when the president landed. He was greeted
by a government official of far cry from the over the top reception
for former President Trump in 2017 and MBS is personal Welcome.
Mm
hmm. Trump's legacy also played out this morning, President Biden
visited Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. There was a formal red
carpet welcome, but the boss criticized Biden for not reversing Trump's
policies.
Helpful. Real Embry here reopening the U. S Consulate in East Jerusalem,
removing the Palestinian Liberation Organization from the U. S terrorist
list. We are not terrorists and reopening its office in Washington.
President Biden fulfilled none of those requests. Instead, he pledged
$200 million for Palestinian hospitals in East Jerusalem and $200
million for the U. N agency that supports Palestinian refugees tried
to display empathy became up empty on specifics about Israeli Palestinian
peace.
So even if the ground is not right for at this moment.
To restart negotiations.
United States and my administration will not give up on trying to
bring the Palestinians Israelis.
And both sides closer together.
But today's focus was on Saudi Arabia and the man who will be king.
MBS is engineered some reforms, giving Saudi women more rights, opening
up entertainment and curbing religious extremists. But US officials
also believe he is the source of the kingdom's crackdown on its critics
and say he approved the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
Do you believe Saudi Arabia can be a part?
To the United States. It's absolutely not possible to have such a
partner Abdullah Al Oud is a Saudi activist. I spoke to him last
week in the U. S. I see him as not today former but rather the former
Who killed our friend.
At the Saudi counselor in Istanbul and dismembered him.
I don't see a person like that as a reformer. Abdallah's father,
Salman is a prominent Muslim scholar who called for change in the
Saudi government. He's been held in solitary confinement and faces
the death penalty. My father was one
Of the main and prominent named names that actually theorized about,
uh, democracy and Islam, and this is the kind of Islam that MBS does
not want. Although he's claiming he's modernizing.
Another Saudi detained Sulayman al Darwish, a well known Islamic
preacher who criticized King Salman forgiving his son. Too much power.
He has been detained since 2016 his son molecule, Jewish, spent years
campaigning for his release and was jailed just two weeks ago. He
recorded this video before his arrest. Disappearance is not a solution,
and it's not just to disappear a person from his family for more
than five years.
Democracy. Basically, that's what you wanted. It's nothing strange.
Nothing weird. Nothing radical. It's simple, straightforward. Uh,
the Saudi people deserve like any other people on this planet Democracy,
basic liberties.
Multiparty system separations power, uh, and independent judiciary.
It's as simple as this.
And Nick Schifrin joins me now from the press filing center in Jeddah,
Saudi Arabia, Nick Great to see you. We just heard how President
Biden characterized his discussions with the Crown prince about the
murder of Jamal Khashoggi. What of Saudi officials been telling you
about that?
Yes. So just a few minutes ago, William. I interviewed out aloud
Jabber. He is the Minister of State for foreign affairs, effectively
the deputy foreign minister here and a longtime leader and foreign
affairs in Saudi
circles, and he said that that is not
What happened? That's not what he saw it at least he heard in the
media. He said that President Biden did bring up Jamal a shock,
but it was not in the same language. It was certainly not as confrontational.
As President Biden claim
and so the two sides clearly are still disagreeing over human rights.
And the bottom line from the Saudi perspective is that yes, President
Biden did push MBS on this, NBS said. It wasn't me and that we've
taken steps to tackle the people who MBS claims acted in a rogue
fashion.
Of course, the U. S. Believes that NBS approved that murder himself.
Separately, Nick, One of the main reasons President Biden is in Saudi
Arabia is to is to pressure the kingdom to ramp up oil production,
ostensibly to bring down gas prices elsewhere and here in the US
Have, Saudi officials said. Whether they're going to actually follow
through on that, ask
Yeah, So I think US officials wouldn't use the word pressure. They
would use the word discussion about energy security. But of course,
part of that William, let's be honest is hoping that Saudi Arabia
opens the spigots so that gas prices in states can come down. President
Biden tonight said that he believed Saudi officials were on the same
page as him. But again algebra. I asked him specifically whether
Saudi Arabia intended to increase production in the next few weeks,
and he would not
Say that Saudi Arabia plan to do that. He said that Saudi Arabia
and OPEC had increased production over the last few months. Already
an independent analyst William Do note that between the E and Saudi
Arabia even if there were some increase, it would not necessarily
lead to easing of prices inside the United States. So again, President
Biden
Quite confident about what Saudi officials saying Saudi officials
who I talked to aren't quite so sure.
Nick. There's also been a lot of talk as you've been reporting on
this trip about better relations regionally with Israel are the Saudis
on board with that move.
Yeah, It's such an interesting question, because we do see Egypt,
Jordan's Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, the countries that have
normalized relations politically, with Israel, beginning to share
military and intelligence, uh, with between the militaries and between
the intelligence services of those countries, and what that allows
them to do. William is to start to talk about.
A kind of regional air defense architecture against Iran, Iranian
missiles and Iranian drones. Saudi officials are not quite there
yet. I asked that allow jabber about that. He says that we need to
see progress in Israel. We need to see peace between the Israelis
and the Palestinians before Saudi Arabia can really truly normalized
with Israel, and then includes kind of behind the scenes military
intelligence.
Cooperation that U. S officials tell me it's simply not happening
in part because they say, King Salman is still alive. William MBS
isn't quite in charge yet. And so long as King Salman is alive, the
people I speak to inside the U. S government believe that there will
be no normalization and and no real effort to share military or intelligence.
Between Saudi Arabia and Israel, as the Israelis would like.
All right, Nick Schifrin joining us from Saudi Arabia. Thanks so
much, Nick.