Way back in September when I arrived on campus I was quite disturbed by the presence of the Caterpillar bulldozers preparing to tear down the buildings along Wyllys Avenue. Before I came to Wes I spent close to a year in Israel/Palestine taking part in demonstrations and working for human rights groups such as Checkpoint Watch, Rabbis for Human Rights, and the International Solidarity Movement. Every week I drove past Israel’s wall on “Jew-only” roads and witnessed bulldozers ripping olive trees out of the earth, knowing that it was more than just a symbolic destruction of peace, but also a very real destruction of a family’s livelihood. On top of uprooting olive trees, the Israeli army uses these bulldozers to destroy homes (and not ‘just’ the homes of relatives of suicide bombers, as is often claimed), and countless civilians have been killed and injured by them.
This past summer I interned with the grassroots advocacy group the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. This year their main campaign is the boycott of Caterpillar on the grounds that it “profits from Israel’s human rights violations of Palestinians by selling bulldozers to the Israeli army through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program. Israel uses these bulldozers to injure and kill civilians, destroy houses, agriculture, and infrastructure, and build illegal settlements and its illegal Wall in the West Bank.”
I urge you all to look further into Caterpillar and how its bulldozers are being used in Israel/Palestine. Campuses across the nation have Boycott Cat campaigns underway. If you find yourselves disturbed, speak up- maybe if enough people voice their anger about the contracting of Caterpillar for Wesleyan’s endless construction projects we can force the administration to find an alternative that doesn’t entail supporting a company who profits from Israel’s gross human rights violations.
Finally, there’s one other place on campus that you can get a good look at Cat- in the Zilkha Gallery exhibit which features a powerful representation of a Caterpillar bulldozer in a fitting context: an exhibit whose central theme (and title) is the “Disasters of War.” The last day of the exhibit is Sunday, Dec. 11, so if you haven’t yet been, check it out this weekend. On Saturday, Dec. 10 at 7 p.m. there will be a special evening featuring the always-amazing Writers’ Bloc and lots of good food.
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