CHICAGO - Caterpillar Inc. shareholders on Wednesday soundly rejected a resolution that would have directed the heavy equipment manufacturer to investigate the use of its bulldozers by the Israeli army to demolish Palestinian homes.

The resolution, which the company said at its annual meeting was defeated 97 percent to 3 percent, stated that Israel has used Caterpillar equipment to destroy more than 3,000 homes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since 2000.

It was introduced by four Roman Catholic orders of nuns and the group Jewish Voice for Peace, who argued that the sale of company equipment for such purposes violates Caterpillar's code of business conduct.

Dozens of protesters lined the sidewalk outside before the meeting, next to a huge banner reading "Caterpillar bulldozers destroy Palestinian homes."

"Caterpillar's sale of weaponized bulldozers [Is that like Africanized bees? -Sol] to the Israeli military is tantamount to selling a gun to a person you know is planning to kill someone," [Or to someone you know is a target for murder. -S] said Liat Weingart, co-director of Jewish Voice for Peace. "Though Caterpillar is not actually behind the wheel, they are providing the machinery as well as training and support for the Israeli military to harm civilians."

Other Jewish organizations had opposed the resolution as unfairly singling out Israel for economic pressure without holding Palestinians accountable for acts contributing to unrest in the region.

Caterpillar's board of directors urged defeat of the resolution, saying that the company has "neither the legal right nor the means to police individual use" of its equipment...

I am writing to you from Chicago, having just left the Caterpillar shareholders meeting where the proposal to investigate what Israel is doing with CATERPILLAR was defeated, 97% to 3%. Although these were preliminary numbers, they are strong.

I must say that it was essential that we were here, and I would like to thank those members and friends who gave StandWithUs their proxy votes ... I arrived representing more than 1350 shares of stock in the company.

The anti-Israel propagandists were present at the meeting in full form, very polished, and made one presentation after another, in an attempt to demonize and marginalize the Jewish state, using CATERPILLAR as a forum. They will tell you that this was not their intention rather, that they want to improve Israel by criticizing her like this. Hmmm ... its an interesting thing to say after they go out of their way to give one-sided negative accounts about Israel.

During the question and answer phase, I was able to challenge the issues brought up by the speakers from Jewish Voice for Peace, BeTzelem, ICHAD, Amnesty International, and a spokesperson on behalf of Rachel Corrie, etc. By my side was Allyson Rowen Taylor from American Jewish Congress, who also spoke out against using CATERPILLAR as a platform like this.

I was concerned when a long presentation was made on the floor by a representative of Jewish Voice for Peace because there was no opportunity at that moment to offer a rebuttal. She held up photos of Palestinians, and she spoke at length about all the negative things you can possibly imagine regarding Israel as an alleged abuser human rights. We were gratefully able to take the microphone at the end of the meeting during the question and answer phase, while everyone was still in the room. We made many important points regarding information that was missing from the presentations that were given.

Had we not been there, the anti-Israel speakers would have been the only voices in that room, not only politicizing the shareholders meeting but giving distorted and misinformed speeches to unsuspecting Directors and shareholders.

A word about the rally that took place in front of the Northern Trust building prior to the meeting: Their theme was mainly related to labor unions but was hijacked by many anti-Israel demonstrators, who had disturbing street theater to make their points, including a tall "grim reaper" costume, as well as a hand made bulldozer costume, etc., all meant to create an atmosphere of blame against Israel. So, while it appeared that all the people who attended the rally were there to demonstrate REGARDING Israel or the issue of Caterpillar's sale of bulldozers to Israel, I spoke with some of the people at the rally who told me that they were actually surprised to see people with another agenda, the anti-Israel agenda, because they were sincerely there out of concern for their labor union issues.

IT SHOULD BE NOTED THAT during the rally, I distributed our new flyers encouraging people to INvest IN Israel. This new StandWithUs campaign was officially launched this week (4-13-05) in response to this campaign against CATERPILLAR as well as the general campaign that we regularly hear about encouraging DIVESTMENT from companies who do business with Israel.

IT IS MANIPULATIVE to have used a company like CATERPILLAR in this way. But I leave Chicago relieved that I was here to provide a pro-Israel voice and certain that this will not be the last time that we will see people work hard to create opportunities like this for their anti-Israel, political agenda. We encourage our members and friends to keep your eyes open and BE THERE in order to counter distortions and one- sided information, as we did today.

Roz Rothstein, National Director,
StandWithUs

(Madison, WI- 04/13/05) The Nations largest and oldest teaching assistants union, Teaching Assistant Association (TAA), adopted a resolution calling on the University of Wisconsin to divest its holdings in weapons manufactures.

The resolution was presented by TAA members working with the University of Wisconsin Divestment from Israel Campaign and adopted with a large majority at the general membership meeting of the TAA on April 12th. The resolution urges the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents to eliminate investments in Boeing, Caterpillar, General Dynamics, General Electric, Lockheed Martin, Northrop-Grumman, and Raytheon from the Universitys Trust Fund based on evidence that weapons, equipment, and supporting systems provided by these companies is being used to perpetrate human rights violations around the world. The arguments establishing the complicity of these companies and the general discussion surrounding the resolution was focused on human rights abuses and war crimes committed by the Israeli army against Palestinian civilians in occupied Palestine and the assistance these companies provide to the Israeli occupation.

In the past, the TAA has adopted resolutions calling on the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents to divest from Burma, East Timor, and Apartheid era South Africa in light of serious discrimination and grave human rights violations committed against civilians in those countries.

Earlier this year, the Faculty Senate of the University of Wisconsin-Platteville passed a similar resolution that made specific reference to Israels violations against Palestinian civilians as the basis for divestment. The University of Wisconsin Regents Trust and Fund Policies provide that divestment ought to be carried out in cases where any company, corporation, subsidiary or affiliate...practices or condones through its actions discrimination on the basis of race, religion, color, creed or sex... or cases where corporate policies or practices ... cause substantial social injury.

All companies listed in the TAA resolution provide the Israeli army with weapons or products that are used to commit well documented violations of human rights of the Palestinian people.