The Jewish establishment in the US has begun preparing of the annual shareholders meeting of Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) next week in Chicago. Caterpillar is the world’s largest manufacturer of equipment for development work. The agenda at the meeting will include a resolution calling on the company to refrain from selling bulldozers and other equipment to Israel, and to make sure that its equipment is not used to violate human rights.
Pro-Palestinian organizations that have bought shares in the company will bring the proposal up for a vote, in hopes that this will increase awareness on the part of the company’s management of what these organizations regard as the risks of doing business with Israel. Caterpillar sells military versions of its D9 bulldozer to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), which has been used to destroy Palestinian houses.
Delegitimizing Israel
Activists in Jewish organizations in the US regard the pro-Palestinian initiative in Caterpillar as one more link in a chain of initiatives aimed at delegitimizing business with Israel, along the lines of the campaign against the apartheid regime in South Africa.
These initiatives are based on a call to public investment entities, such as pension funds for government employees, to sell shares in Israeli companies, Israeli government bonds, and shares of foreign companies doing business with Israel.
”There is an ill-advised and troublesome effort calling for total or selective divestment from corporations that do business with Israel, and to pressure others, such as Caterpillar Inc., to stop selling products to Israel,” says American Jewish Congress president Paul S. Miller. “Preying on the emotions of well-meaning individuals who think that they are contributing to peace, these divestment campaigns coincides with other efforts which seek to undermine Israel’s self-defense, its economy and its legitimacy, and to pressure Israel to make concessions during peace negotiations with the Palestinians. It is time to make it clear that these tactics will not work.”
The tactics devised by the American Jewish Congress are expected to serve as a model for other Jewish organizations not just national organizations with tens of thousands of members, but also synagogues and regional and local Jewish fellowship organizations.
In the effort to defeat the pro-Palestinian initiative in Caterpillar, the American Jewish Congress has bought Caterpillar shares. It will take advantage of the platform provided by those shares at the shareholders meeting to call on the company’s management not to surrender to pressure. It appears that the American Jewish Congress will propose a counter resolution calling on shareholders to oppose the termination of the company’s commercial relations with Israel.
Caterpillar-free region
The number of pro-Palestinian shareholders in Caterpillar is unknown, but is probably negligible, and designed solely to provide them with a platform at the company shareholders meeting. The campaign received a significant boost from a lawsuit filed against the company by the family of Rachel Corrie, a pro-Palestinian volunteer from the US who was killed in March 2003 by an IDF Caterpillar bulldozer while trying to prevent the destruction of a Palestinian house in the territories.
Liat Weingart, a co-director of Jewish Voice for Peace, one of the organizations promoting the pro-Palestinian initiative in Caterpillar, said, “When shareholders initially brought this issue to Caterpillar years ago, before we even filed the resolution, we told the company, ‘you’re putting yourself at risk for a lawsuit.’ The lawsuit adds fuel to the fire of the argument that Caterpillar is working against its own best interests by not responding in any kind of substantive way when shareholders have requested that they investigate the matter.”
Another development working in favor of the pro-Palestinian resolution is a vote in Limerick, Ireland on whether to declare the city a “Caterpillar-free area,” in protest against the company’s sale of heavy equipment to Israel. The resolution forbids the municipality to use equipment manufactured by Caterpillar in any public space in the city, and calls on all labor unions in the city to avoid using such equipment.
If the resolution is approved, Limerick will be the first city in the world to be declared “Caterpillar-free.” While the financial significance of such a measure is negligible, it could have symbolic significance, and is liable to influence other cities to adopt similar resolutions.
Up until now, Caterpillar’s management has resolutely opposed any attempt to force it to stop doing business with Israel. A short message on the company’s website states, “Caterpillar shares the world's concern over unrest in the Middle East and we certainly have compassion for all those affected by the political strife.
”However, more than two million Caterpillar machines and engines are at work in virtually every country and region of the world each day. We have neither the legal right nor the means to police individual use of that equipment.
”We believe any comments on political conflict in the region are best left to our governmental leaders who have the ability to impact action and advance the peace process.”
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on April 7, 2005