Riyadh, Saudi Arabia ? The Saudi women gathered in the airy, two-story living room of sociology professor Suad Al Mana’s home to vent their frustrations.

They were the cream of Riyadh’s educated upper middle class, professors and doctors. Many had degrees from the United States, where some of their children were born. They had always considered themselves pro-American, light years away from supporters of Osama bin Laden.

But they were meeting to express anger at U.S. policy toward the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, a policy they do not understand.

The questions flew furiously. Why was America so firmly in support of Ariel Sharon even though the Israeli leader has ignored U.S. demands that he pull his troops out of the West Bank? Why didn’t U.S. officials label as terrorism the firing of Israeli missiles into Palestinian refugee camps? Why didn’t the Bush administration protest when Israel wouldn’t permit ambulances to reach the Palestinian wounded?

“Even if people were willing to live peacefully with Israel before, now everyone will be forced to become an extremist,” exclaimed Maha al-Qunaibit, an assistant professor of chemistry at King Saud University. Her daughter, Ada, a 23-year-old medical student, amplified: “We’re not saying it is OK for Jewish civilians to be killed, but we want this to stop either way.”

The voices came faster and faster, interrupting one another.

“What worries me most,” another professor cut in, “is that this (U.S. policy) is widening the gulf between the West and Muslim countries. Our education system has been blamed … although we are trying to reform the education system. But U.S. policy is widening the gap even between moderate Saudis and Americans.”

What’s important here is that these women typify the most pro-American segment of Arab society: the Saudis with long ties to the United States. They are at the forefront of the Saudi modernization process, wearing long black cloaks and veils outside the high walls that surround their single family homes, but pantsuits inside. They send their daughters for higher education to the United States and England, and their children watch American movies and go on holidays to Disneyland.

These women teach in the segregated women’s wing of King Saud University, but back Crown Prince Abdullah’s efforts to upgrade women’s schools against the resistance of conservative clerics. They are the moderates on whom America would normally rely as a bridge to the Arab world at a time of strained relations, as a bulwark against the kind of perverted thinking that produced the hijackers of Sept. 11.

But they see what’s going on in Israel and the West Bank in totally different terms than does the Bush administration. They deplore the killing of civilians but insist that the suicide bombers are resistance fighters against continued Israeli occupation. They think Sharon doesn’t want a political settlement and that Bush is backing him.

They see nothing wrong with telethons that raise money for the families of Palestinian “martyrs.” No P.R. effort by the U.S. government will win their hearts and minds. In their view, Arabs have the responsibility to help Palestinians in pain.

So the administration is in danger of losing support from this key component of Saudi society. These are the kind of Saudis who would still back Crown Prince Abdullah’s initiative for all Arab states to normalize relations with Israel, if Israel pulled back to its 1967 borders.

But their support is fraying. A few weeks ago, Crown Prince Abdullah explained his initiative to a group of women that included assistant biology professor May al-Jasser.

“We backed him, but in these three weeks (during which Israeli troops entered the West Bank), our priorities have changed,” says al-Jasser. “We want our national pride.”

Three weeks ago, she says, the details of the initiative were open to negotiations (on hot issues like final borders and Jerusalem).

“Now nothing is negotiable,” she says. Israel must pull out to 1967 lines, full stop.

Around the region, moderate Arab attitudes are hardening. The women say their young children never cared about the Palestinian issue before but now are more angry than their parents.

“There is a new war starting,” says Maha al-Qunaibit, “inside them.”

Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Her e-mail address is trubin@phillynews.com.