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left filthy discharges in their wake. On land, the cruise crowds streaming into foreign ports
by the thousands have disfigured beaches and plazas, building resentment among many
locals. Cozumel isn't the only port that has taken on the life of a strip mall. St. Mark's
Square in Venice is now a field of kiosks selling cheap imports and lines of tourists waiting
to visit the basilica.
This business model was a smashing success for Arison; he died in 1999 one of the
world's wealthiest men, with a fortune estimated at $5.6 billion. His heirs have stayed
wealthy: his son Micky runs Carnival and is a power broker both in the business and in
southern Florida. He is worth over $4 billion and is the owner of the Miami Heat profes-
sional basketball team. Arison's daughter Shari is the fourth-wealthiest person in Israel.
The various owners of Royal Caribbean have done just as well: Sammy Ofer was one of
the wealthiest men in Israel with assets worth $4 billion before he died in 2011; members
of the Pritzker family, who were billionaires before they bought into Royal Caribbean, are
permanent fixtures on the Forbes list of wealthiest Americans. (Penny Pritzker, a high-pro-
file member of the Chicago family, was a chief campaign fundraiser for President Barack
Obama.)
Once realized, Arison's vision of the cruise industry ultimately supported some of the
most handsome family fortunes in Florida and Israel.
Born in British-controlled Palestine in 1924, Arison was the son of a multimillionaire
shipping magnate. Merchant shipping in the area was built on the proud legacy of the
Phoenicians. The young Arison came of age in a time of war, of the unspeakable blood-
shed of the Holocaust in Europe and unrest in Palestine. He rose to the occasion in both
instances, showing physical courage and a maturity beyond his years. He volunteered in
the Jewish brigade of the British army during World War II, an unsung unit that fought
against the Fascists in Italy. After the Allied victory he returned to Palestine and within a
few years was fighting again, this time against the British as a member of the Israeli army
in that country's war for independence from Britain and against Arab neighbors.
With independence, Arison threw himself into building the new state of Israel, imbued
as Israelis all were with patriotism for the new country and its people. But Arison was a
merchant at heart, and he began to sour on Israel when the new government issued laws
and drafted economic programs that he considered obstructions of free enterprise.
Unhappy, he liquidated the family business and immigrated to the United States, where
he started a cargo shipping line in New York. When that business flopped, he bought an
air transportation company. Still restless, he sold that company in 1966, saying he was re-
tiring, and headed to Miami, where the holiday cruise story begins.
Southern Florida was beginning its explosive tourist boom. The region was the petri
dish for developing mass tourism, just as Silicon Valley in northern California gave birth to
Internet technology decades later. The Florida state government was bending over back-
ward to support new business that would bring tourists to the state, especially ones that
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