This is important and I’ve been sitting on it, sorry. Four points:
–Caterpillar has temporarily stopped delivering bulldozers to Israel. JPost:
Caterpillar, the company which supplies the IDF with bulldozers, has announced that it is delaying the supply of D9 bulldozers during the time that the trial of Rachel Corrie proceeds, Channel 2 reported on Monday.
–Sydney Levy of Jewish Voice for Peace interprets the news in this manner:
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.
…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 … 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.
–Speaking of JVP, the group has the honor of being on the Forward’s list of the 50 leaders in the Jewish community in the last year, right there with Abe (No Soup For You) Foxman. The Forward states, neutrally: