Hotels and Hoffer — in Haifa? August 5, 2002February 21, 2017 HOTELS I’ve mentioned the advantages of Priceline.com when you’re booking a hotel room and you’re sure you won’t have to change your plans. And the advantages of Expedia.com when you might have to change your plans. I look to see what Expedia can offer, then try to do 40% better at Priceline. If I fail, I just go back to Expedia and book there, which still saves a lot of money. But I guess along with Expedia we should add Hotels.com. Although controlled by the same owner as Expedia – which can’t bode too well for price competition – Hotels.com has such clout, according to the latest issue of Worth Magazine, that it can sometimes get you rooms that the hotel itself can’t sell you – and at a significant discount. Like so much of the Internet: great for consumers, not so great for investors. HOFFER David Brudnoy: ‘You know of course who Eric Hoffer was. [Just click if you don’t.] This is prescient – look at the date it was published.’ ISRAEL’S PECULIAR POSITION By Eric Hoffer (LA Times May 26, 1968) The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews. Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people and there is no refugee problem. Russian did it, Poland and Czechoslovakia did it, Turkey threw out a million Greeks, and Algeria a million Frenchman. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese – and no one says a word about refugees. But in the case of Israel the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab. Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis. Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious it must sue for peace. Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world. Other nations when they are defeated survive and recover but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed. Had Nasser triumphed last June he would have wiped Israel off the map, and no one would have lifted a finger to save the Jews. No commitment to the Jews by any government, including our own, is worth the paper it is written on. There is a cry of outrage all over the world when people die in Vietnam or when two Negroes are executed in Rhodesia. But when Hitler slaughtered Jews no one remonstrated with him. The Swedes, who are ready to break off diplomatic relations with America because of what we do in Vietnam, did not let out a peep when Hitler was slaughtering Jews. They sent Hitler choice iron ore, and ball bearings, and serviced his troop trains to Norway. The Jews are alone in the world. If Israel survives, it will be solely because of Jewish efforts. And Jewish resources [2002 note: America has surely helped with resources! – A.T.]. Yet at this moment Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally. We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us. And one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer had the Arabs and their Russian backers won the war to realize how vital the survival of Israel is to America and the West in general. I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish the holocaust will be upon us. ☞ Too pessimistic. Peace will succeed because peace has to succeed. But . . . oy!