why dont you have a protest about the number of jews blown to bits by arab terrorists in Israel?

Ignore "Betar Boy's" comment if you like but consider this.

How COULD Cat comply with your demand? What possible mechanism do you envision? Treat that question seriously for a moment.

When nation X sells weapons to nation Y it is often with the provision (a condition of the sale) that these not be resold to nation Z. But all nation X can do if nation Y turns around and sells them to Z is to refuse to sell any more weapons to Y. They can't go to court and get the weapons back.

Of course private indiviudals CAN be taken to court. But what laws would you first have to get passed in the US (or in Britain for that matter) to make possible as a condition of outright purchase restiriction on resale. To be sure, we have this with LICENSED "property" where what is being sold is just the "right to use". However things like bulldozers are NOT normally sold that way. While a business like Cat MIGHT to a certain extent lease out (rather than sell) bulldozers normally this equipment is sold outright.

Understand? The only means by which Cat could prevent D9s or any of their other bulldozer models being bought by Israel is not to sell them to anybody. Not to me, for example. Certainly not to "Betar Boy".

Betar boy, do you just live online? Constantly refreshing Indymedia to see if there is any mention of the word 'Israel' or 'Palestine'? It's like, you just have to wait 5 seconds after any post on this topic, and there you are.

What are you doing? Don't you think you're a little sad?

Betar Boy.

What about the innocent Israeli Arabs that get blown up?
What about the innocent Palestinian Arabs that get killed, blown up, ran over?

What about the 4,000+ INNOCENT PALESTINIANS that have BEEN KILLED in the LAST 4 1/2 years?

Isn't it interesting the your only concern is the jews that have been killed! you don't say ISRAELI'S, you said JEWS!

So!

Are you concerned about ISRAELI ARABS who might of been killed?

Is that because u believe that one group of people have more rights to one piece of land than another?

Or

Are you like me and believe that land could be shared?

In order to keep CAT equipment running, you need to maintain it. This requires new parts and lubricants - which CAT will supply (I don't know, I am nothing to do with campaign but I support them).

The aim would be to get CAT to say something along the lines:

'We will never supply anything to X directly or indirectly.' Similar to the statements made to Shac.

If the company has a policy of not dealing with killers then that is enough, of course someone else could sell them on but that can not effectively dealt with - unless you ask the company that is now selling them to also make the same policy.

I will tell you some companies that also help Israel because they sell their products or make business with them: Tesco, Sainsbury's,Asda,Morrisons,M&S, and the corner shop ner my home.
Countries: All the countries in the world apart from north korea syria and iran make business with Israel.

Why do you pick on caterpillar? Can I then buy nike instead with a free guilt mind? I dont think so Nike also makes business there.

Your campaign is silly, and in the very remote possibility that u succeed another company will take their place. And for your information the Palestinian AUthority aproves the death sentece and have recently executed some prisoner, have you thought about putting some pressure on them about this or u just dont care about human rights in Palestine if the ones abusing them are Palestinians?

Roman - Sadly, I don't think we can treat their campaign as silly. I believe it is far more sinister than this, and is aimed at undermining public support for our government's firm stand against religious fundamentalist terrorism. The more people that realise this, the better. The people at the heart of these activist movements are not interested in human values and wellbeing (although I am sure some of the small minded followers don't even realise this), they are interested only in misrepresentation and subversion. Misguided yes, silly no.

Mike - Your comments show a deep lack of knowledge of the UK Government's export control policy. This policy is VERY tight and closely policed and enforced. The fines and restrictions that can be imposed for contravention of exports controls are severe (both in commercial and personal imprisonment terms) and would make any benefit to be gained by trying to avoid the law pale into insignificance. Only one conclusion therefore .........that Caterpillar and other companies like them are ACTING LEGALLY ! So leave them alone, if you don't like the goverment - protest against them - or have you forgotten you are lucky enough to live in a democracy. (By the way...because you obviously HAVE forgotten this bit .....in a democracy, other people and companies have the right to go about their lawful business without harrasment).

And to save anyone called Mary Litiman getting any phone calls - it is not (of course) a real name. Can anyone work it out?

When will people stop having faith in government checks and rules? Just because something is legal doesn't make it morally right. During the Nazi rule of Germany, it was legal to kill Jews. This is blatantly not right.

I am not racist, prejudiced or anything else. I campaign for freedoms for all. Just because a campaign targets a country that is made up of one race doesn't mean it is racist.

True terrorism is wrong, but so is retaliation attacks. Too many 'innocent' people get killed because of a stupid struggle for power. It would save Israel a hell of a lot of lives and trouble to let the palestinians have their own country.Why don't they do it? Seems to be just so they don't lose face to anyone - but it isn't working, as nations across the world are seeing the country in a bad light.

It doesn't matter which companies you target - it all goes to the same end. If loads of large companies start turning to Israel and saying 'we won't deal with you because what you are doing is immoral (and under international law - illegal)' then they will take note.

"Betar Boy" wants to know:

"why dont you have a protest about the number of jews blown to bits by arab terrorists in Israel?"

Now, obviously its hard to tell just how successful his own experience of brainwashing has been - however, the two things ARE actually related, as this reort shows:

"The Haaretz newspaper said Thursday that the military committee that studied the house demolitions concluded there were only few cases in which it was clear the deterrence was effective.

In other instances, the damage the demolition created was greater than the benefit, the newspaper reported. "The deterrence, that is anyway limited, is not equal to the hatred and hostility this move breeds," the report added."
 http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20050217-042810-9244r.htm

And that is the problem in a nutshell - the attacks on the Palestinian civilian population carried out by the Israeli 'Defence' Force do not reduce militarism, they increase it. If Israelis are to have security, then Palestinians MUST have security as well. And the policy of collective punishment, illegal under international law fuels the flames and causes deaths on BOTH sides.

"Mike" says:

"How COULD Cat comply with your demand? What possible mechanism do you envision? Treat that question seriously for a moment."

Firstly, CAT set itself up for this campaign by making claims such as this:

"As a company and as individuals, we hold ourselves to the highest standard of integrity and ethical behaviour... If we do any less, we put Caterpillar's name and our reputation for integrity at risk." (Caterpillar's Code of Worldwide Business Conduct, page 4)

Many of us believe that they should live up those fine words - especially as, despite having removed their fine words from their website, they're still pretending to be ethical:
 http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3929.shtml

Quite simply, they could refuse to sell to Israel - and the matter would then drop. For as lonmg as they insist that they will sell to Israel and that they can't control what Israel does with the bulldozers that Cat sells them - knowing EXACTLY what Israel will do with them - the company will continue to be the subject of its very own campaign.

Roman missed the point entirely with a very silly comment.

Mary is already brainwashed if she thinks illegal collective punishment is a "stand against religious fundamentalist terrorism" - for starters the Israel/Palestinian conflict is about the wholesale theft of land from an indegenous peoples - secondly reaction to Israeli brutality has been far more of a trigger for violent acts that the teachings of Islam..... ho hum

BOYCOTT CAT - STAMP OUT COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT

Why the hell do we waste our time responding to dumb trolls like Mary the military man. Ignore him and he might actually have to start doing something useful. Maybe we could get an injunction - hey Paul?

My thanks to 'Non-Military Man' for responding to my posting above. It does the soul good to know that you people care enough to respond.

Unfortunately, Mary cannot write personally to all her fans, but please feel free to continue enjoying the protection provided by our democratically elected government, courtesy of our armed forces using products from BAE, EDO, caterpillar etc etc.

"Hail to the chief.......etc etc"