Arabs Seethe at Caterpillar
Arab states are threatening to boycott Caterpillar Inc. unless they stop selling bulldozers to Israel.
The Damascus-based Arab office for the boycott of Israel has warned US company Caterpillar Inc. that Arab states will blacklist it if it keeps selling bulldozers to Israel’s military.
The boycott office, in a letter sent to the Illinois-based company, accused Caterpillar of selling Israel equipment used to destroy Palestinian property in the Israeli-occupied territories.
“Your insistence to go on supplying the Israeli army with bulldozers and other equipment that helps it to destroy Palestinian lands and houses … would eventually lead to halting any dealing with your company by all Arab countries,” according to the letter, the contents of which were made available to The Associated Press on Thursday.
Caterpillar has come under fire for its sale of equipment that Israel uses to destroy Palestinian homes. The company has repeatedly disputed protesters’ arguments, saying it has “neither the legal right nor the means to police individual use of that equipment.”
“We have compassion for all those impacted by political strife around the world, but the facts remain that we don’t have the legal right to police the use of our equipment,” Caterpillar spokesman Ben Cordani told the AP in a telephone interview.