My "Letter to the Editor"

Caterpillar D9 is used to demolish Palestinian homes...

Two days ago, the City of Portland took the next step in being "Occupation Free" when it's Socially Responsible Investment Committee (SCIC) voted to recommend that City funds should not be invested in Caterpillar, citing concern that Caterpillar Corporation violates a number of the City’s socially responsible investment criteria.  Needless to say, those of us in the BDS movement - and, in particular, Occupation Free Portland, the coalition of religious, social and other justice groups and individuals, were ecstatic, although the larger step of getting the Portland City Council to accept this recommendation remains ahead of us.

Immediately after the (4-2) vote was taken, the local press went to work to blast the decision, re-hashing all of the old, tired arguments as to why the city should not take this step (http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/03/bulldozed_by_delusion_editoria.html#incart_email).

The following is my response to that article:

...and to uproot Palestinian olive trees

“The company just makes tractors.”  How naïve are you?  The D9 bulldozer/tractors that the Oregonian airily dismisses in this manner are tools of destruction – designed to the exact specifics of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

Caterpillar knows only too well that these weapons will be used to destroy Palestinian homes and to uproot Palestinian olive trees.  Caterpillar is not an innocent vendor of a farmer’s tool that has been altered beyond its original purposes – they are involved in every step of the modifications to create this weapon!

Those who say investors should “engage” with Caterpillar (and other “bad actors”) ignore the fact that churches (specifically the United Methodist and Presbyterian churches), and others have engaged with Caterpillar for years (10+ for the Methodists) and that, while well aware that the continued manufacture and sale of the D9 to the IDF is a violation of human rights, Caterpillar has not changed its behavior one iota.

What has changed is that churches and other entities have stepped away from the table and taken other measures.  The Presbyterian Church voted in 2014 to divest from Caterpillar.  The Oregon Idaho Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church voted in 2015 to divest from Caterpillar – and that church’s international body will consider a number of measures around this issue when it meets in Portland in May.

The D9 was also used to construct the "Wall"

In the meantime, the Socially Responsible Investment Committee has done the right thing – the responsible thing – and I hope the City of Portland will have the mettle to support them!

Allahu Akbar

Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem

On my many trips to Palestine/Israel, I had never been to the Temple Mount – the plateau above the Wailing Wall which houses the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque - and one of the holiest of sites in the Muslim world.  On this last trip, things were relatively peaceful and we arrived at the site early enough to gain admittance during the limited hours it was open to the public.

I was struck, first, by the beauty of the sight – a large open area with gardens and trees, where people sat outside to quietly converse, or pray and contemplate.  It was peaceful too, at least until a group of Jewish tourists decided to exercise their “right” to visit. 

The Torah forbids that Jews visit Temple Mount

We were told (and a sign at the entrance verified) that “entry to the Temple Mount area is strictly forbidden” under Torah law – yet those Jews who believe that that God gave them all of the real estate in Israel and Palestine apparently also believe that they are entitled to wander freely over the site and disrupt the tranquility that is otherwise evident.

We heard the chanting – softly at first and then with increasing volume, “Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar.”  It came from the groups of men gathered in circles to smoke and drink coffee, and from women hitherto engaged in quiet conversations, “God is greater; God is greater.”

A quiet spot for contemplation and prayer

No shouting, no blows, just those words.  Sometimes, this is not the case.  The omnipresent security guards attest to the fact that sometimes, the “incursion” of Jewish visitors incites violence – on both sides.  And we knew that, while that day’s visitors were only there to see, other times visitors came to incite.  We knew that younger Muslim men were not allowed to worship at this site – the third holiest (after Mecca and Medina) in the Muslim world – and that the site was often closed to all visitors because of violence or its threat.

 

View from Temple Mount to the Wailing Wall

And beyond the beauty of the site, we heard, too, of Israeli “plans” to extend the Wailing Wall that Temple Mount overlooks, an action that would undermine the foundations of the mosque – and of the people who worship there.  Some Jews believe they need to construct a second temple on the site, while some Christian Zionists believe that the mosque must be destroyed to bring about “end times.”

The site has a long history as a holy spot for all of the Abrahamic faiths.  Jews believe that the Dome of the Rock was built over the site of the first Jewish temple of Jerusalem, while Muslims believe that the Dome was built on the site where the prophet Muhammad ascended into Heaven.  Both faiths believe that the site was the place where Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son – Isaac in the Jewish (and Christian) tradition and Ishmael in the Islamic version.

As-Aqsa Mosque on Temple Mount, Jerusalem

In more recent times, the 2000 visit of Ariel Sharon (accompanied by 1,000 armed guards) to the site is cited as the start of the Second Intifada (literally “throwing off”), a period of great unrest in the area that ultimately led to Israel’s construction of the infamous “Wall.” 

If, as I have read, it is true that Jerusalem was given its great beauty to compensate for its many sorrows, then it is also true that this holy site is one of the great “beauty spots” of Jerusalem.  I pray that it will remain so!

An Open Letter to Portland's Socially Responsible Investments Committee

When I spoke at your February meeting, I shared that the OR/ID Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church had voted in June of last year to divest from Caterpillar (as well as Motorola Solutions and Hewlett Packard) because of its violations of human rights in the (illegally) Occupied Palestinian Territories.

The Wall in Tulkarm has kept Palestinians from the Mediterranean since 2002

I am now writing as an individual, to share my personal experiences as a human rights observer in Palestine.  In the spring of 2013, I spent three months with the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI – see eappi-us.org).  During that time, I lived in the Palestinian city of Tulkarm, in the northern West Bank.  As the crow flies, Tulkarm was about 12 miles from the Mediterranean Sea – but few of the city’s residents had ever been to the seaside – and none since 2002, when the Wall was built on Tulkarm’s western border.  That wall was built with the assistance of Caterpillar bulldozers.

My “duties” while working in Palestine included monitoring checkpoints for workers, agricultural checkpoints and school checkpoints, the latter two of which were needed to allow people living in the “seam zone” (the “no man’s land” area between the Wall and the Israeli “border”) to access their farm land and their schools.  Again – artificial barriers (not to mention a “land grab!”) erected with the help of Caterpillar!

Caterpillar bulldozers destroy Palestinian olive trees

Another (unpleasant) duty was to monitor incursions by the Israeli military into Palestinian land to uproot olive trees and demolish homes.  My teammates and I had to stand by while these actions took place – powerless to intervene – and then try to console the people whose property had been destroyed (by – you guessed it! – Caterpillar bulldozers).

You have been hearing a lot about Caterpillar’s violations of human rights – about the large number of homes destroyed, trees uprooted, etc.  What I can add is that if one Palestinian home is saved, if one olive tree continues to bloom, that would be a major contribution toward peace in the Middle East – and it is a contribution that the City of Portland can and should make!