--- On Fri, 10/29/10, Sydney Levy, Jewish Voice for Peace
<[email protected]> wrote:
Message
This is not an earthquake.
This is what CAT bulldozers
do in Palestine.
Tell your friends to ask TIAA-CREF to stop
investing in CAT now.
Dear
Hajja Romi,
I have remarkable news. 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.
A suspension of the sale of bulldozers is what we have been
asking Caterpillar for over seven years now. This is a great win, but this is
no time to let off the pressure.
Caterpillar and the U.S. government have neither confirmed
nor denied the news. And news reports describe the company's move as a
temporary decision only. To urge the U.S. government to make this policy
permanent, please sign the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation’s
petition to President Obama to continue this new policy.
We need to hold both our government and corporations
profiting from the occupation accountable. TIAA-CREF, one of the largest
financial services in the United States, invests heavily in Caterpillar (over
$250 million as of their last financial report). Thanks to you, we've already
gathered over 17,000 in our petition to TIAA-CREF, asking it to divest from
Caterpillar and other companies that profit from the Israeli occupation. But we
need more! Tell your friends to sign our petition. If TIAA-CREF divests from
Caterpillar, it will have a rippling impact everywhere.
Since 2003, Jewish Voice for Peace has been filing annual
shareholder resolutions to pressure Caterpillar with a growing coalition of
interfaith partners. We've organized protests. We've taken over a CAT
dealership. We've worked in support of Presbyterian and Methodist divestment
initiatives from the company, and with your help, we are asking TIAA-CREF to
divest from Caterpillar as well.
Caterpillar has never budged... until now.
Caterpillar's irresponsible behavior comes with a heavy
price tag. In the last ten years, at least 11,795 homes have been
demolished.(3) These statistics, gruesome as they are, cannot do justice to the
pain of so many families, to their razed livelihoods and their shattered dreams.
The picture above does not come from an earthquake scene.
It depicts the man-made destruction and the hopelessness that the Caterpillar
bulldozers bring at the hand of the soldiers who wield them. Let's make sure
that this is the last picture of this kind we get to see.
Thank you and shabbat shalom,
Sydney Levy
Jewish Voice for Peace
(1) Report: Caterpillar to delay supply of D9 bulldozers to
IDF. Jerusalem Post, Oct 25, 2010, as well as Israel's Channel 2 TV, October
25, 2010 (evening broadcast in Hebrew).
(2) For updates on the trial, visit the Rachel Corrie
Foundation for Peace and Justice.
(3) The statistics are from the Israeli Committee Against
Home Demolitions and run up only until July 28, 2010, a day after the Bedouin
village of al-Araqib in the northern Negev desert was razed to the ground. The
village would be rebuilt and demolished five additional times (see Open Letter
to JNF: Equal Rights, Sustainable Development for Negev, Not Dispossession of
Bedouin! and El Araqib Village Demolished for Sixth Time.)
Subscribe to our blog Muzzlewatch through Feedburner or
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Check out our new blog, www.TheOnlyDemocracy.org
Inspired by what we're doing? Please donate now. Every
donation makes a difference.
Contact us directly at Jewish Voice for Peace. 1611
Telegraph Avenue, Suite 550. Oakland, CA 94612 510-465-1777 [email protected]
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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