hundred sixty seven when israel occupied the west bank gaza strip and east jerusalem over twelve thousand palestinian homes have been destroyed and over seventy thousand people have been left homeless and destitute since the occupation of east hundred sixty seven seventy thousand government sponsored housing units have been built for israelis but none have been built for palestinians orders from the israeli interior ministry distributed on april twenty eighth two thousand four stipulated the demolition of a further twenty four palestinian houses in east jerusalem the destruction of these east jerusalem houses clearly illustrates the political agenda driving israel's relentless demolition policy israel's attempt to alter the demographic makeup of the city since one thousand nine hundred sixty seven israel has expropriated approximately thirty four percent of east jerusalem as land area for public use another fifty three percent of east jerusalem as land has been set aside for colonies settlements or designated as a green areas palestinians in east jerusalem can therefore live and build on only thirteen percent of their land permission to build houses in east jerusalem can cost thirty thousand dollars the price of a small islam and the process often takes up to five years palestinians often therefore find themselves lacking any other alternative but to build without permits and are then subject to forced evictions and home is the us campaign to end the israeli occupation it's a coalition group for it nearly two hundred member organizations throughout the u s all working for justice and peace in palestine in israel in one way or another caterpillar in is america's sweetheart corporation it's incorporated in peoria illinois it has nearly two hundred manufacturing plants all over the world it makes about thirty four point two billion dollars a year nearly two billion dollars alone that one of its customers is the israeli government israel gets caterpillar bulldozers particularly their demons and their d tense now how they get them is something that's still subject as speculation there's two ways that the israel can get caterpillar bulldozers one is a foreign military financing another is foreign military sells its foreign military financing the us gives israel a particular lump sum in aid and then israel by directly from caterpillar as part of the aid package as a requirement of that aid package if it's foreign military  s government buys the bulldozers from a cat itself and then gives it as a donation to the israeli government now we're not sure which way it's actually saul but something that might come up in discovery in the suit against caterpillar that's being filed that has been filed in washington district court in any case once israel gets these denying and d ten bulldozers they militarily modify them in their ramp to division of the militant em to military division in israel and they modify them to equip them with bullet proof windows machine gun mounts grenade launchers and six foot blade in the front a fifteen foot ripper in the back it  a war machine and a west bank military general has said that the bulldozer is quote the key weapon of the military occupation once those bulldozers are modified and are in israel hands they're not used to you know great grow agricultural farmland they're not used to build homes to build communities and and livelihoods as if we're you know sort of believe here in the us because it's america's we are corporation to the contrary the caterpillar bulldozers the war machines that they've become are used to devastate livelihoods are used to continue the ethnic cleansing of palestinians from the land since september two thousand caterpillar bulldozers bulldozers have been used to demolish four thousand one hundred and seventy homes according to human rights watch in the gaza strip in the west bank in the past four and a half years the bulldozers have been used up route one million sixty three thousand and eighty three olive trees according to m tree i mean agape their presence and their indigeneity on the land they also represent the economics as subsistence of a palestinian peasant population in the sense that the olives that you pick from the tree from the olive harvest are sold and present a livelihood the olives are also squeezed to make all of oil and then are also sold mash nationally internationally representing their livelihoods you destroy those trees and palestinian farmers and families no longer have the means of subsistence and are forced to leave the land as a refugee population part economic refugees but refugees nonetheless again now this is all in contravention of international law the destruction of homes the destruction of the olive trees are in contravention of article fifty three of the fourth can either convention which controls the rules of and to demolish the homes the justification that we get is that the trees have to be cleared in order for more settlements to be built but the settlements are illegal to begin with the settlements according to article forty nine of the fourth geneva convention negate the law or contravene the law that says that a nation civilian population will not be resettled in occupied territories and that's exactly what the settlements represent you stake out the richest palestinian land the hilltops you build the settlement there you clear the palestinian homes that existed before then you build these bypass roads and bypass roads  roads for jewish settlers only no palestinians can drive on the roads and the way that you can tell is because the jewish settlers have yellow license plates and the palestinian population has green license plates it's an apartheid system it's an obvious apartheid system but to build the bypass roads you demolish all the homes in its way you demolished all the trees in its way and the clearance around the roads and the settlements now for the homes they say will we demolish the homes to deter the next palestinian terrorists from attacking according to beit selim an israeli human rights organization they can't even prove that forty seven percent of the homes have been demolished have any association with any violence against israel now what else are the caterpillar bulldozers being used for they're also grass it's beautiful this wall is two times the height of the berlin wall it runs four hundred kilometers long and it's not for security it's not a separation barrier if it were a separation barrier it would run the length of the green line or the one thousand nine hundred seven armistice line between the west bank and israel instead it runs two times the length of the green line it juts thirteen kilometers into the west bank and it jets like this and all of those bulges where it juts out represent where the settlements are that the israeli government is trying to unilaterally annex in anticipation of a unilateral withdrawal from the west bank a kin to the unilateral withdrawal from the gaza strip this wall has been deemed illegal by the international court of justice in the july two thousand and four advisory opinion where it affirmed that one the wall is illegal the wall needs to be dismantled that any business doing any corporation doing business to b wall is in violation of the law it's reaffirm the palestinian right to self determination and it said that israeli security is no pretext for this violation of international humanitarian human rights law and caterpillar is being used to continue its expansion in fact the un security council tried to pass a resolution that would prohibit the expansion of the an s vetoed that resolution and so the wall continues to be built and continues to be built with the aid of caterpillar caterpillar enables israel to continue its human rights violations the homes the demolition  the olive trees the building of the annexation wall and extrajudicial killings or assassinations one of the most prominent examples of extrajudicial killings that we know as an american public the murder of rachel corrie on march sixteenth two thousand and three rachel corrie was a twenty three year old american activist university student at evergreen college in olympia washington who joined the international solidarity movement which is a movement of activists from the internationally who go to the west bank and the gaza strip to put their bodies between the israeli military and palestinian homes and people thinking that they can use this as a form of nonviolent resistance in any case rachel was part of this program and in two thousand and three the home that she was staying at the home of a palestinian physician w slated for demolition and when the caterpillar bulldozer came out to the home she wanted to stand in between the bulldozer in the home not in a silly simple minded way that she thought she can stop the demolition but she thought that using her body just to stand there would at least delay the demolition of the home so that the physicians family can take out their most valuable goods before the demolition because mind you before these homes are demolished the families aren't given sometimes more than fifteen minutes to leave imagine someone knocking on your door and saying your fifteen minutes before we destroy the roof over your home and all of your most valuable and cherished belong in your children security and your fifteen minutes to leave so rachel stood in between the bulldozer in the home she wore a bright orange vest and the driver of the bulldozer was at least a thousand feet in front of her clearly clearly rachel was visible and the driver of the bulldozer drove straight to her and when she actually realized that this driver wasn't going to stop and tr climb the dirt mound to get out of the way the blade on the bulldozer dragged her feet underneath it and trample to her not want but it rolled back over her again and then over her a second time and murdered rachel corrie an american citizen a young woman a peace activist the israeli government has denied any responsibility for it and has to produce an investigation or conduct an investigation that can at least assuage her family's inside or her why she was killed and why the driver drove over her for the international peace community peace and justice community it's pretty clear rachel was use an example as an example for the rest of the international solidarity movement don't come here you're not wanted not only will we kill civilians will kill you as well you paraplegic a refugee refugee camp who was in his home during the april two thousand and two encourage him to janine and because he's a paraplegic he couldn't leave the home on his own and his mother and his sister beg the soldiers to be able to help jamal out of his home but before the before they can even argue the bulldozer rammed into the home and one of the walls question to death another story is about him but he would call a fellow a seventy year old father a grandfather who was in the home and too old to be able to leave on his own and before he can leave the home was demolished over him and when his sister when his daughter and his wife came back to look for his body they found his eyes filled with rocks so these are stories that are so egregious to anybody if you heard them you would say well if you can stop the israeli army from these atrocious human rights violations at least take away the weapons that enable them to conduct them and one of those primary weapons happened to be caterpillar bulldozers without the bulldozer israel could not demolish that home and so we are targeting cat is our government is the biggest ally to israel and we can't get the ear of george w bush dick cheney and their cohorts we can get the ear of the shareholders of caterpillar they're our neighbors do you all own shares and all we need them to do is to vote yes to conduct an investigation as to what caterpillar is doing in the territory to build the wall demolish the homes to up with the trees to kill civilians to vote yes to suspend sales to israel until israel comply with international humanitarian and human rights law we're asking for nothing more than the compliance with standards that already exists caterpillar's own standards it's called the business conduct demand that it not sell weapons to any nation that will use their goods in contravention of human rights law so why should israel be an exception in this case this is an issue of corporate accountability the same way that we target unocal when it went in slaves of burma's indigenous population to build a pipeline from burma to china and we tell unocal no cannot do this when we tell shell oil company in the world it's petroleum no you cannot displace the population of nigeria in order to extract your oil and build your pipelines we say no to halliburton you cannot wage a war on and civilian population to extract and control its oil in the same way we're telling caterpillar no you cannot profit off of conflict and bloodshed you cannot make money off of every home that's demolished in tree that's uprooted and that's murdered and those average americans can then sign these postcards all these postcards are addressed to james owens the c e o of caterpillar now james owens has notice of what his what his bulldozer is doing in israel and his public response has been i'm just doing my job i sell the bulldozer i don't tell israel what to do with it but that's not enough according his own code of business conduct that's not enough and it's against the law and if he's not going to be moved by his own morality then we as a grassroots movement should convince him that he should be ashamed of himself so that's the grassroots component what we're trying to do is also wage an in institutional campaign if you're part of the universe a student in need of or a city if you have connections to your city council if you attend a church or a mosque or synagogue  temple we're asking you to speak to your fellow worshipers tell them about pat and ask your representatives at that at that religious institution or that university institution to pass a resolution against kat that says we condemn what our american corporation is doing and we ask that they suspend their selves to israel and we have drafts of that resolution that we can send to anybody who's interested in waging such you know passing a resolution the third part of our campaign is a legislative campaign and what we're asking is that if you already visit your local congressional representative or have interest to do so or to see them or their legislative aid we have a legal memo enumerating and outlining israel's violations of human rights enabled by caterpillar take that to the representative tell them here is what here's what caterpillar is doing and because of this we want you to refuse cat pac money cat gives campaign financing to congressional representatives all over the us for to those representatives we want them to say no cat we don't want your dirty money if they don't receive money we're we want them to pass or urge for a general a general accounting office investigation a g a o investigation into whether or not cat is in violation of the arms export control act the arms export control act is a u s statute that prohibits u s corporations from selling its goods in contravention of human rights for military purposes well for military for that pro corporation from selling their goods abroad for military purposes in contravention of human human rights law caterpillar is clearly in violation of the e c a but the only way that we could investigate and prove that caterpillar is in violation of a t c a is through a g a o investigation not through litigation since this is a function of the executive branch but we can't do that alone folks who their congressional representative have the most power able to walk into that office and tell their representative i vote for you and if you represent me i want you to push for this investigation because i believe in human rights so that is our three part campaign it's going to call me in two thousand and six in the spring with two national movements one on march sixteenth two thousand and six when the stopped at coalition which is located in chicago but stems throughout the midwest organizes a march on pure aria to let james owens know that this is the third year since rachel corrie's murder that you are a part but you're also guilty of and we're urging you again to stop yourselves to prevent the murder of the next palestinian civilian so for folks who are wondering well why cat why israel why not every other corporation that's profiting off of conflicts and bloodshed well it doesn't mean that because we're pursuing kat we're letting everybody else off the hook there's been precedent to corporations who have profited from human rights violations and our goal is to hold them all accountable you know not one of the primary examples are those companies who produced gas nerve gas for use in nazi concentration camps who have since been held accountable and have had to compensate the survivors of the concentration camps south africa is another primary example where u s corporations profit profited off of apartheid south africa not least of which were the banks the banks are loaning money to south africa and they've recently been sued in u s federal court for their investments and they're profiting from apartheid and in that same strain in the same spirit of justice peace and human rights we're now going after caterpillar as it and other corporation that thinks it can get away with violating human rights to the benefit of its pocket the center for constitutional rights along with the human rights clinic at seattle university law school filed a lawsuit lawsuit against caterpillar incorporated and washington district court for seven on seven claims of for relief including public nuisance wrongful death negligence a rico violation and also in violation of the fourth geneva conventions and that pursuant to the alien torts claims act in the torture victim protection act the idea behind this lawsuit was so that the corys parents can be vindicated in u s courts but also so that caterpillar if it wasn't going to be assuaged by moral and political rationale would at least been joined from continuing their sales in a u s federal district court later after the after months in two thousand and five the complaint was amended so that seven other palestinian families were added to the lawsuit judge berkus of the washington federal district court dismissed the caterpiller claim in late november two thousand and five but that claim has since been appealed in the ninth district court and the ninth district court the ninth circumciser the ninth circuit court is very friendly to these human rights claims they ruled for for the berm ease population and dovi unocal saying that unocal might not have told the burmans army to in slave its indigenous population to build a pipeline from burma china but un certainly knew that the army was doing so and profited from that action and profited from its failure to stop it in the same way that caterpillar known as how it bulldozers are being used and is profiting from those continuing sales and profiting from its constructive ignorance of what's going on on the ground and so to support that lawsuit and to support that claim it's also imperative for the grassroots movement to take a strong hold in the us and that movement doesn't stand alone the movement of targeting cat is part of a larger comprehensive divestment movement from israel justice and peace community against the israeli state to tell the government that if you will listen to our pleas then we'll use our economic and consumer power to force you to force you to abide by international humanitarian and human rights law we're not asking for any standard above and beyond that which already exists the standard which we are aspiring is the one that applies to all of us are as members of the international community neither the us nor israel nor burma nor japan nor mexico is above that law and that is what we're part of we're part of an international movement for international human rights and humanitarian