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CERTIFICATE OF DEPOSIT 10 O ANNUAL YIELD SPECIAL 36 MONTH C.D. • Interest Paid Annually or by Monthly Check Balance of $5,000 or more Limited time offer. Subject to withdrawal. Franklin Savings 26336 Twelve Mile Rd. (At Northwestern Highway). Call Or Come In For Details Today! (313) 356-2102 HOLIDAY GIFT LIVINGS COLLEGIATE PORTABLE ELECT HONK TYPEWRITER Portable. Affordable. Correctable. • The able-bodied Swintec Collegiate electronic portable 111111111111111immonimmimmommorpromaiiiiir 4 UNITED BUSINESS MACHINES 24902 Northwestern Hwy. Market Street Shoppes Southfield, MI 353-3100 FOCUS "THE SMART WAY TO DO BUSINESS Now Only $39900 . . . reg. $449.00 IS WITH UNITED BUSINESS" With Hyatt's Pritzker BY EDWIN BLACK Special to. The Jewish News The Arab boycott against companies doing business with Israel is a flop because it is not supported by the major Arab entrepreneurs themselves. This is nowhere better illustrated than the hotel industry. True, every so often a hotel chain prints up a brochure and deletes any reference to their Is- rael property. The most recent scandal was when British Air- ways hand-stickered hundreds of thousands of its in-flight maga- zines to block out a reference to Jerusalem in a Sheraton ad. But these are isolated examples de- signed to publicly mollify Arab boycott officials. The reality is that the anti-Israel economic strategy fails because Arab entrepreneurs are more in- terested in business than in boycotts. Hyatt Hotels is proof positive. A dominant hotel chain in the Arab and Moslem world with about a dozen lavish properties stretching from Indonesia to Saudia Arabia, the Hyatt chain thrives despite the fact that its owner — Jay Pritzker — is a highly visible supporter of Is- rael. A major Israel Bonds buyer and contributor to Federation campaigns, Pritzker has fi- nanced Israeli hospitals, special projects at the Weizmann Insti- tute and many other Jewish and Israeli causes. Reached at his Chicago home •for a rare interview, Pritzker explained, "Remember, Hyatt doesn't actually own any of these hotels. We only manage them for two, three, sometimes four percent of the gross. Var- ious Arab and Moslem businessmen own them, and in some cases those businessmen are actually the heads of Arab states. Frankly, all they ask is that we do a good job running them." In London, for example, - Hyatt operates the Carleton Tower, which Pritzker explained, "was formerly owned by a Jewish family, and was then sold to a prominent Arab personality. This individual is very nice to deal with, and the fact that Jews manage his hotel doesn't bother him at all. In fact, he once told me that there are still Jews in his country, and they live in peace and maintain a synagogue. If I run his hotel profitably, what does he care? All he really wants to know is do we have a chef, can we get another one when the chef quits, do we have the personnel to run the hotel, and do we have the reservations system to fill the rooms. The answer is yes." Pritzker admitted that some years ago his firm did receive some "minor threats" vis a vis the Arab boycott, "but they were so insignificant. I can't even re- member what they were." On the contrary, Hyatt's standing in the Arab and Mos- lem world has earned it a spe- cial niche as the hotelier to Arab royalty. "The Sultan of Brunei," is a perfect example, says Pritzker. "when he built his new palace, a fabulous place, we were called in. It was $50 million in furnishings. Then we catered his reception, and that ran $5-10 million." Thus far, Hyatt has experi- enced problems only once, in Iran, where they managed three properties. "Two of them were owned by the Shah through his Pahlevi Foundation, and the third was owned by the Minister of Finance," recalled Pritzker. When the Shah's government fell, the hotels were seized, and Hyatt managers barely escaped. "In fact, one of them was ulti- mately thrown in jail," recalled Pritzker. "He was making his way out, and at the airport they examined his luggage and found a photograph of him and the Shah together. That was enough to lock him up." The manager was eventually retrieved and spirited out of the country. Anti-Israel economic strategy fails because Arab entrepreneurs are more interested in business than boycotts. Pritzker says that to this day he doesn't know what has be- come of the three properties. Pritzker finds it ironic that despite "many friends in Israel and few if any friends in Arab nations," Hyatt has numerous hotels in Arab lands and has never established a foothold in Israel. Some have falsely be- lieved it was to avoid friction with Arab clients. "Not so," says Pritzker. "It isn't that we don't want to be in Israel. It's just that the people who develop the hotels haven't asked us." Actually, Hyatt did briefly manage one Tel Aviv beachfront property. But the financially troubled hotel quickly went out of business. For years, Hyatt has been rumored to be opening a unit in Haifa. Sources indicate that project will probably never see daylight. But Pritzer does expect a hotel to finally open on Mt. Scopus next year. "Well, we've been talking about it for about 10 years. The project was originally developed by an in- vestment group, and then we ran into all sorts of environmental problems. It was too tall for its location. So it had to be re-designed and then a group of Mexican Jews took over its financing and the zoning question. "Really, I find it harder to do business in Israel than the Arab