Video Shows Prince Charles Seemingly Refusing To Shake Hands With Mike Pence At World Holocaust Forum
A video that quickly went viral on Thursday morning shows what appears to be Britain’s Prince Charles blatantly snubbing United States Vice President Mike Pence, simply looking away and walking past the American vice president — who was left with his hand extended — as the prince greeted world leaders at the 5th World Holocaust Forum in Jerusalem. The event commemorated the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a Nazi death camp located in Poland, by allied troops at the end of World War II, as The New York Times reported.
Pence’s office was quick to deny that the prince snubbed him, saying that the pair shook hands before the event, and after Pence delivered an address there, according to a report by the news site Raw Story.
One world leader who did not snub Pence, according to Raw Story, was Russian President Vladimir Putin, who rose from his seat to shake Pence’s hand following the vice president’s speech at the Holocaust Forum.
As shown in a video clip from The Guardian, the Prince of Wales proceeded along a greeting line, shaking hands with various dignitaries. But when he came to Pence, for some reason, he gave the vice president a glance, then turned away, quickly moving to shake hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
As the viral video spread on Twitter and other social media platforms, the vice president’s spokesperson apparently took the initiative to contact a conservative news outlet to deny that Charles, who is next in line for the British throne, had deliberately passed by Pence on the greeting line, according to Raw Story.
An official White House photo posted by CBS News correspondent Mark Knoller appeared to show the prince and Pence engaging in a friendlier, more jovial moment, at some point during the event.
All smiles as VP Pence exchanges greetings with Prince Charles at World Holocaust Forum in Jerusalem which @VP addressed this morning. (Official White House Photo Myles D. Cullen) pic.twitter.com/R85PXgBxHo
— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) January 23, 2020
Speaking at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem, Pence called for a worldwide effort to halt what he called the “rising tide of vile anti-Semitism fueling hate,” as quoted by The New York Times.
But Pence’s remarks came one day after it was confirmed that an openly anti-Semitic online broadcaster, Rick Wiles of TruNews, had been granted a White House press credential to cover Donald Trump’s appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, earlier in the week.
Last August, after Trump accused Jewish voters who support Democrats of “great disloyalty,” while also posting a tweet praising U.S. industrialist Henry Ford — who held openly anti-Semitic views and authored a book titled The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem — a prominent Israeli journalist and editor of the newspaper Haaretz penned an op-ed blasting Trump as “the greatest anti-Semite of our age.”
A spokesperson for Buckingham Palace later also denied that the prince had snubbed Pence, according to a BBC report, saying that the two engaged in a “long and warm conversation” earlier.
