Does al-Qaeda Do the Fist-Bump?

Terrorists aren’t big on fist-jabbing or bumping—they’re all about kissing and hugging, writes Juliet Lapidos for Slate in the aftermath of the New Yorker's depiction of knuckle-knocking Obamas, a move referred to by Fox News as a “terrorist fist-jab.” Al-Qaeda members, she writes, are likely to enlist a common Middle Eastern welcome of three cheek-to-cheek embraces.  

While Hamas and Islamic Jihad employ similar etiquette, Colombia’s FARC prefer simple handshakes and the Marxist greeting of “comrade.” Northern Ireland’s IRA avoided distinctive (and potentially incriminating) salutations, opting instead to behave as chums in public, referring to alleged leaders by their first names. Privately, however, the rank-and-file stood at military-grade attention in the presence of their superiors. (More al-Qaeda stories.)