The world curries favor with Bin Salman while Jamal Khashoggi is forgotten

A year after the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi — suffocated in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and then dismembered to dispose of his body — friends and colleagues of the journalist gathered at the last place he was seen alive. The vigil, held in front of the Saudi diplomatic mission, was attended by intellectuals and human rights advocates; dissidents from various authoritarian countries in the Middle East — who at the time were finding refuge in Turkey; then-U.N. special rapporteur Agnès Callamard, whose investigation directly links Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the murder; and Jeff Bezos, then the world’s richest man and owner of The Washington Post, for which Khashoggi wrote. All agreed that, even in death, the journalist had dealt a blow to Saudi absolutism by showing the world the true and cruel face of its strongman, condemning him to become an outcast. They couldn’t have been more wrong.

Money is money, oil is oil, and Saudi Arabia is a country that is large, influential, and powerful in the Middle East and the world. So Bin Salman — or MBS, as he is popularly known — only had to wait for the storm of controversy to subside so that the current of realpolitik could return things to normal. Countries, initially ashamed, have resumed signing agreements, closing deals, and selling weapons, now without any qualms. Bezos himself, who promised to support justice and the search for truth — the whereabouts of Khashoggi’s remains are still unknown — and who even accused MBS of hacking his phone, has done significant business with the Saudis (Amazon has strengthened its presence in the country through substantial investments).

The first to offer MBS a lifeline was Vladimir Putin: two months after the brutal assassination, the Russian president greeted him warmly at a G20 meeting in Argentina, during which almost all the other leaders present tried to avoid him. The close relationship between Putin and Bin Salman has led both countries to act in concert on energy issues (including Saudi funds investing in Russia) and geopolitical matters, such as the war in Libya, Riyadh’s rapprochement with the Assad regime before its fall last year, and the invitation for Saudi Arabia to join the BRICS group.

In the case of the United States, Donald Trump was very careful not to be seen with MBS after the murder, especially after the CIA itself confirmed that it was the crown prince who ordered Khashoggi’s execution due to his growing criticism of Saudi absolutism. However, contacts with the Saudis did not cease, as Riyadh’s mediation was key to one of Trump’s flagship projects: the Abraham Accords to normalize relations between Middle Eastern states and Israel. With his successor, Joe Biden, in office, public contacts with MBS resumed; the man who truly wields power in Saudi Arabia, even though his father, Salman bin Abdulaziz, is the official head of state.

European countries have not lagged behind in the rehabilitation of MBS, and not only because of their interest in hydrocarbons. Saudi Arabia has been among the world’s largest arms buyers for over a decade. “Saudi Arabia’s main suppliers between 2020 and 2024 were the U.S. (74%), followed by Spain (10%) and France (6.2%),” emphasizes the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). French President Emmanuel Macron has met with MBS on several occasions, and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez also visited him in 2024. As early as 2018, Sánchez justified the continued sale of military equipment to Saudi Arabia — despite the Khashoggi case and its use in wars like the one in Yemen — by citing the “defense of Spanish interests” through the maintenance of jobs.

Turkey was the last country to back down. To prove what had happened at the Saudi consulate, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government shared audio and video recordings with its allies — even at the risk of admitting that it blatantly spies on foreign diplomatic missions on its territory — and maintained the need to prosecute the masterminds behind the assassination. As a result, Ankara found itself embroiled in a kind of Cold War with the Saudis, which led them to support opposing sides from Libya to the Indian Ocean.

Finally, in 2022, the Turkish court trying the defendants in absentia for Khashoggi’s murder threw in the towel and accepted the prosecution’s request to suspend the proceedings and transfer them to Saudi Arabia. This came at a time when the Turkish government was seeking to break its international isolation to overcome a critical economic situation. Since then, trade relations with Riyadh — including arms sales — have normalized, the Saudi Central Bank signed a currency swap agreement that helped stabilize the Turkish lira, and both capitals have increased political cooperation in areas such as Syria and Palestine.

As such, the state dinner hosted by Trump for Bin Salman in Washington Tuesday was simply a reenactment of what has been happening for years. Amidst much glitz and glamour, the world’s most powerful men feted the strongman of the Saudi monarchy. Trump and the top officials of his administration were there, representing the executive branch. From the economic sphere, Elon Musk and Apple CEO Tim Cook were among the many attendees. And the world of sports — which has done so much to whitewash the image of the Saudi dictatorship — was represented by FIFA President Gianni Infantino and former Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo, now captain of Al-Nassr, owned by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund PIF, chaired by Bin Salman. Trump warmly thanked the footballer, his son Barron’s “favorite,” for his presence, saying that thanks to him, his son “respects him more.”

In a world run by networks of favors and personal connections among these powerful men — and in an increasingly obscene way — murders like Khashoggi’s are excesses that are forgiven over time. “Things happen,” as Trump said. And the journalists who ask about it are “insubordinate.”

And yet, many people are still willing to defy the law. “Jamal stood for a democratic Middle East, where freedom of expression and of the press will be respected. For his dreams, he was feared. And ultimately murdered,” wrote Callamard, now Secretary General of Amnesty International, on the social network X. “Our silence will be far worth than their expected betrayals. So let’s keep shouting his name. Jamal Kashoggi (sic). And lets keep fighting for his dreams and those of many journalists like him, from Gaza to Saudi Arabia, from the U.S. to Russia and including China.”

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