The Very Destructive Caterpillar
As for the Caterpillar angle, I’d be surprised if Dwayat was in fact aware of the symbolism. After all, the campaign against the company is a product of the international coalition of pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel organizations that includes human rights groups, lawyers and media folk, rather than a grassroots affair.
Most famously — or infamously — a Caterpillar D9 bulldozer ran over and killed the 23-year-old American Rachel Corrie in Gaza in 2003, after she and other activists from the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement ignored requests to leave an area in which the Israeli army was operating. The ISM claimed Corrie was “murdered” while trying to protect Palestinian homes. The IDF says its troops were clearing weapons-smuggling infrastructure, and that there was no way the driver of the D9 could have seen her.
Corrie’s family and others have tried to sue Caterpillar, thus far without success, and since her death she has become a hero of the Palestinian “resistance,” lionized by, among others, the pro-Palestinian BBC. A foundation for peace and justice has been set up in her name, although missing from its olive branch-adorned website is the notorious photo of Corrie burning an American flag at a demonstration in Gaza.
The “special resonance” that Caterpillar vehicles apparently have among Palestinians certainly doesn’t prevent them from using the machines, as I pointed out in a blog post in March. Presumably they’re happy to use the best tool for the job, and leave the hand-wringing to their supporters around the world.
As I wrote then: “Among leftist opponents of Israel, Caterpillar has become a by-word for the perceived injustices visited on the Palestinian people. Maybe someone ought to tell the Palestinians.”
And now that a Palestinian has used a Caterpillar machine to murder innocent Israelis, maybe someone ought to tell Human Rights Watch and the other organizations that have attempted to demonize the company.
Will they want to continue with their campaign if Caterpillar becomes a symbol of Palestinian terror, rather than of Palestinian victimhood?
The solution is clear:We must press for a world wide ban on “assault caterpillars”. these dangerous machines have only one purpose:destroying human beings.besides, who needs carbon emitting behemoths,when there are legions of undeemployed who can do the same job as a caterpillar tractor, with a pick and shovel(As long as they have a license,and the tools are registered with th police).
The use of a Caterpillar bulldozer to brutally murder Israelis yesterday puts a crimp in the Palestinian campaign to demonize the company.
The use of the word “bulldozer” in news stories about the use of a front-end loader as a murder weapon also puts a crimp in the credibility of any news agency which so misuses the word.
And how does the demonization of Caterpillar get reduced one iota by this story? Everyone from the New York Times on down harps on the evil Caterpillar company. You’d think that the Kalashnikov company would come in for a share of the demonization, but no. Whether the ‘activist’, or ‘insurgent’, or terrorist or criminal or murderer slays some civilian or other with an AK-47 or a 155mm shell or an entire yard’s contents of construction equipment, the MSM will find a way to make the deed another black mark against capitalism and for the glorious “resistance”.
There are a lot of manufacturers of bulldozing equipment. Why is Caterpillar being singled out? Here’s why:
Union members at Caterpillar, the world’s largest maker of heavy equipment, rejected a contract offer today, in a move that will let them have their old jobs back without gaining anything after a bitter 17-month strike.
Union members rejected the latest company offer as the United Auto Workers’ central bargaining committee voted to send the 8,700 strikers back to work. Union officials would not say why they ended the strike.
I think the company’s in complete control,” said one striker, Jim Schmidt. “We have to accept defeat.” [source]
I knew several union workers at Caterpillar back then [1995]. I was told, in a very matter of fact way, that the union’s leadership was going to communist party meetings for help with the strike. So there is an alliance between the union, the communists, and of course now the Palestinians, who are the ultimate Useful Fools in all this.
You can see why Caterpillar is so reviled by the Left, from the New York Times on down: it stood up to the union, and to the communists, and now to the Palestinians — and won.
In reality, Caterpillar is the quintessential American “can-do” company. As for its tamed union? Pff-f-f-t.
This article is ridiculous. Maybe if there weren’t any suicide bombers the big bad bulldozers wouldn’t have to destroy the homes. I have two words for you McNally. CAMP DAVID
Unithraxer
I’m a bit confused by your comment. You appear to think I’m anti-Caterpillar and sympathetic to suicide bombers, which is a complete inversion of my position and the thrust of the article. I think you may have read the opening paragraphs and got the wrong end of the stick. Of course if you understand my position and are disagreeing with it that’s fine, but then your comment doesn’t make any sense.
<<<<<Proud Operator of a 420 CAT. Having seen the video , I can tell that this jihadi had no clue how to run the machine. The real hero is the israeli SOLDIER that climbed on the machine and sent this coward to the big orgy in the sky. BTW , CAT makes the best construction machines in the business and I’m proud to actually wear an official CAT hat too!
Palistinians having common cause with UAW? I guess corrupt organizations have much in common. The Union movement in this country has become an entity much more concerned with the personal power of it’s leadership than the welfare of it’s memberships, JUST LIKE the leadership of the various Palistinian groups. The power of the union is in direct conflict with the individual success of it’s membership, witness the slow death of the US auto industry . . . JUST LIKE the leadership’s of the various Palistinian movements.
Do people know the difference between a bulldozer and a front-end loader?
Yes, DDI, people know the difference. Progressives, however, do not.
Will they want to continue with their campaign if Caterpillar becomes a symbol of Palestinian terror, rather than of Palestinian victimhood?
There are no symbols of Palestinian terror. Not the rockets & missiles lobbed daily from Gaza into Israel, not the nail and ball bearing filled bombs wired into the suicide vests of killers of Israelis, not the sundry weapons constantly supplied to them through the (Rafah) underground passages that (the dupe) Rachel Corrie was trying to protect.
So, no, the bulldozer will forever and always be a tool of Israeli oppression.
And the parents of Rachel Corrie will continie to pursue “justice” against the manufacturer of the bulldozer for the daughter they raised to think and reason like a fool.
And someone, somewhere off Broadway will produce a paean to Rachel known as a “play”. (oh wait, that already happened)