Israel Matzav

Caterpillar withholding bulldozer deliveries to IDF?

There's something very strange going on here. The London Jewish Chronicle is reporting (supposedly based on Israeli sources - I haven't seen any, but I can't possibly read everything that's published here) that Caterpillar is holding up the delivery of about $50 million worth of armored D-9 bulldozers to the IDF. Let me give you the story (it's short) and then I'll come back to what I find to be strange about it. My bottom line is that I don't buy this story.

The Israeli press is reporting that Caterpillar is withholding the delivery of tens of D9 bulldozers—valued at $50 million—to the Israeli military.(1) These are weaponized bulldozers that are used to illegally destroy homes and orchards of Palestinian families. And they are the very same bulldozers as the one that killed a 23-year-old American peace activist named Rachel Corrie seven years ago when she tried to protect the home of the Nasrallah family in Gaza.

That's why the next part of the story is even more amazing. The news reports say that the deliveries have been suspended now because Rachel's parents, Cindy and Craig Corrie, are bringing a civil suit against the government of Israel in a court in Tel Aviv.(2) The deliveries are to stop during the length of the trial. We take this as an indirect admission by the company that these bulldozers are being used to violate human rights and to violate the law. The Corrie story is sadly just one of thousands of stories of loss and pain.

Yeah, the Corrie's are suing the Israeli government. That's an old story. But Caterpillar actually won a lawsuit against the Corrie's in the US. So why would Caterpillar suddenly suspend sales? And why 'for the duration of the trial'?

How about this (the article was removed and the link is to the cached version)?

Caterpillar, the Illinois-headquartered construction and farming equipment company, has said it will delay shipments of D9 bulldozers to Israel during the Rachel Corrie trial. Corrie, a pro-Palestinian activist from Washington state, was killed by an Israeli Defense Forces soldier who ran over her while driving a D9 to demolish a Palestinian home in Gaza in 2003. Her family is suing Israel, and Corrie has become an iconic figure in pro-Palestinian circles. (One of the boats in the aid flotilla bound for Gaza that Israeli troops stormed this summer, killing nine, was named for Corrie.)

Previously, the Corrie family sued Caterpillar in U.S. court, but a federal court of appeals ruled that the company "cannot be held legally liable for the use of its bulldozers in Israeli military operations because the equipment is paid for with American government funds and represents an extension of American foreign policy, a federal appeals court ruled," reported the New York Sun.

I added the emphasis. So is the sale of D-9's to Israel no longer American foreign policy? Or was the article removed because it was inaccurate? Here are a couple of paragraphs that were missing at the previous link.

For years, Caterpillar has taken heat for supplying bulldozers to Israel. "Caterpillar claims that selling military equipment to Israel and other countries amounts to only 0.06% of its sales," says Lynn Pollack of Jewish Voices for Peace. "Too many homes, trees, and lives in Palestine have paid dearly for that meager 0.06%. It is high time for Caterpillar to be less greedy and more ethical."

And while a few institutions -- Hampshire College, the Church of England -- have divested from the company (whose sales rose 53 percent during the third quarter of this year), Caterpillar has, until now, not bended to pressure to suspend sales to Israel.

That still doesn't explain why now. So I went to Caterpillar's press releases. After all, if they were going to do something like this, wouldn't they want their shareholders and the public to know about it? There was no press release. Is someone perpetrating a fraud on Caterpillar? I'd bet on it.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:40 AM