To CEO Cordani,

Rachel Corrie was a beautiful peace activist, 23-years old, who placed herself between a Caterpillar D-9 Bulldozer and the home of a Palestinian family on the Gaza Strip. The driver of that bulldozer deliberately ran her over and then backed up, crunching her underneath the tires of that Caterpillar bulldozer one more time, just to seal the deal.

Nuha Sweidan was a Palestinian woman 9 months pregnant. As she sat in her own home, perhaps musing about the future of her life with her soon-to-be-born child, an Israeli Defense Forces soldier drove probably one of your Caterpillar Bulldozers into the house next to hers. Toppling homes do not have orders to spare the neighbors. Nuha Sweidan and her unborn child were killed that day and found in the rubble of two homes.

You sell your D-9 Bulldozers to the Israeli Defense Forces. The IDF soldiers primarily use those bulldozers to illegally destroy Palestinian homes. The IDF have destroyed more than 9,000 Palestinian homes since the beginning of the Israeli occupation in 1967, leaving over 30,000 people homeless. You reap the profit from the sales of murder weapons. For years, hundreds of U.S. civic leaders, churches, peace organizations, scholars and citizens have written to your thriving corporation, informing you of these crimes. They have been demanding that you stop all bulldozer sales to the Israeli Military.

I demand the same.

Your corporation’s code of profit is as follows:
“As a global company we can use our strength and resources to improve, and in some cases rebuild, the lives of our neighbors around the world.”

Bulldozers work like fire. The destructive force of fire can pave the way for renewal, future growth, as it can also be used for senseless acts of tragic violence. A key difference between your bulldozers and fire: profit. No one profits from fire. While IDF soldiers could easily build fires for free, they don’t. They primarily use bulldozers that you sell to them, that you supply. And you profit all the while.

Stop selling your bulldozers abroad. Take some responsibility for how they are used. Make sure they are used for building, improving, renewing and not for murder. As the CEO of Caterpillar Corporation, you can make this responsible and humane choice before your workers organize to make the choice for you.

The true force behind any corporation lies in the hands of the worker. Your workers are conscientious. They would most likely not support the use of D-9 Bulldozers to murder peace activists and innocent Palestinians while you reap the benefits far beyond what they receive as compensation for their labor. It is not long before your workers band together to demand an end to the violent use of their creation through work stoppages, work slowdowns or any number of direct actions. If you will, workers are the machinery that keep society running. We can also be the monkeywrench.

Take a stance of responsibility before your workers take their stance of conscience.
Stop all sales of Caterpillar Bulldozers to Israel.

Sincerely,