Word: jidda
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...commercial planes and killed 3,000 civilians; many prefer to believe that the attacks were the work of the CIA or the Mossad, and that the 15 hijackers were unwitting players in someone else's plot. "They were just bodies," a senior government official says. Spend an evening in Jidda, the hometown of Osama bin Laden, where young Saudis today flock to American chain restaurants and shopping malls to loiter away the stifling summer nights, and you rarely hear bin Laden's name. "They find it silly when people talk about al-Qaeda," says journalist Mohammed al-Kheriji...
...Speaking to Time in Jidda, al-Jubeir laid out the Saudis' case: "We play a moderating influence in terms of regional stability, oil markets and financial markets. And Saudi Arabia is the center of the Islamic world; 1.2 billion people around the world face Mecca in prayer. Wouldn't you want to have strong ties with a country that has this position?" Perhaps. But it's worth asking, At what cost...
...generation ago, vast swaths of the Arabian Peninsula lacked the basic infrastructure of a modern society-roads, running water, electricity. Today nearly half the country's 22 million people live in Riyadh or Jidda, and Saudis make up the biggest market for U.S. consumer products in the Middle East. When they're not fighting city traffic in Cadillac SUVs, middle-class Saudis frequent gleaming shopping malls lined with designer brand names from the U.S. In a country where women are required to wear full-length abayas in public, you can catch Sex and the City on satellite TV every Friday...
Zuher Al Tbaiti might have been another departing Saudi tourist as he walked through Mohammed V airport in Casablanca for a flight to Jidda. Thousands of Arabs from oil-rich Gulf states visit Morocco every year, delighting in the North African folklore, agreeable climate and spicy night life. Al Tbaiti, though, seems to have been seeking kicks of a different sort. As he prepared to board the aircraft, Moroccan agents swooped in and led him away. They believe that a second fake passport and thousands of dollars in undeclared currency they found in Al Tbaiti's bags help explain...
...losing hearts and minds in the Arab world at a time when the U.S. is waging war against Islamic extremism. "The street is important," says a U.S. official. "This is ground zero in the war on terrorism." Anger is directed at the U.S. and Israel in equal measure. In Jidda, a prominent Saudi businessman with close U.S. ties dashed off a letter to President Bush, saying he feared Washington "will lose the support of all your friends in the Middle East." In e-mails and Internet chat rooms, informal networks organize boycotts of American products, from Hollywood films to fast...