Caterpillar Inc

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NYSE
:
CAT
company headquarters
USA
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A US-based multinational manufacturer of construction machinery and equipment. Its products are weaponized for the Israeli military and are used in home demolitions; in the construction of illegal settlement infrastructure, border walls, and military checkpoints; and in military assaults against Palestinians.

Caterpillar Inc is the world's largest manufacturer of construction and mining equipment. Headquartered in Deerfield, Illinois, it employed just over 107,000 people worldwide and generated $50.9 billion in annual revenue as of 2021.

For decades, Caterpillar has supplied heavy machinery—most notably, the Caterpillar D9 armored bulldozer—to the Israeli military. The company's sole distributor in Israel is Israel Tractors & Equipment (I.T.E.), a subsidiary of Zoko Enterprises. Caterpillar has boasted that "I.T.E. had a major role of building the country infrastructure with Caterpillar equipment" since its founding in 1948.

Caterpillar equipment is often gifted to Israel through the U.S. Government's Foreign Military Financing program. For example, in 2017, the Israeli military purchased dozens of Caterpillar heavy engineering vehicles in a deal described as "the largest acquisition of its kind in the last 20 years." The sale was financed by the U.S. government.

War Crimes Involving the D9 Bulldozer

Once received in Israel, D9 bulldozers are retrofitted for the purposes of the Israeli military by Ramta, a subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), in collaboration with Caterpillar's Israeli licensee Zoko Enterprises. The retrofitting includes "the installation of gunner positions and a bulletproof driver cabin to allow for battle use," according to Who Profits. IAI and Zoko Enterprises also developed three versions of an unmanned, remote-controlled armored D9, nicknamed Thunder of Dawn, Winnie-the-Pooh, and Panda. These bulldozers are deployed around Gaza and have been used against protestors, as documented by Who Profits.

The Israeli military routinely uses Caterpillar D9 bulldozers to demolish Palestinian homes, public buildings, roads, commercial properties, agricultural land, and other civilian infrastructure. At least since 2004, "the Israeli military [has] use[d] the D9 as its primary weapon to raze Palestinian homes, destroy agriculture and shred roads in violation of the laws of war," according to Human Rights Watch. As Amnesty International highlighted in 2010, Caterpillar had fallen short of complying with the United Nations' Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

Between 2021 and January 2022 alone, D9 bulldozers were used to demolish homes, schools, roads, and infrastructure in the Palestinian neighborhoods of Beit Hanina, Sheikh Jarrah, and Sur Baher in occupied East Jerusalem, as well as in Masafer Yatta, the South Hebron Hills, and other areas of the occupied West Bank, as documented by Who Profits.

D9 bulldozers were also used extensively in Israel's attacks on Gaza in 2008–2009 and 2014, according to Who Profits. During the 2014 attacks, Israel killed at least 2,131 Palestinians, at least 1,473 of whom were civilians, including 501 children and 257 women. Evidence of war crimes was published by Al-Haq and Al Mezan, B'Tselem, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch.

In addition, Israel routinely uses D9 bulldozers to carry out extrajudicial executions of Palestinians as part of its so-called "pressure cooker" procedure. The Israeli military developed this tactic to pressure Palestinians targeted for arrest to evacuate the home in which they are hiding and surrender. In the last step of the protocol, according to Who Profits, a "bulldozer initially shakes the house and then starts peeling off the walls of the floor in which the suspect is located, ultimately destroying the house and burying the suspect beneath it." The "pressure cooker" protocol is conducted using Caterpillar excavator models D9 (L/N/R/T), 966 (E/F/G/H), 330, and 349.

Armored D9 bulldozers are also used by the Israeli military as "crowd control" weapons. For example, during a 2020 protest in the Palestinian village of Kafr Qadum in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military used D9 bulldozers to deliberately push large boulders toward protestors, including young children. At least two people were injured as a result. One year earlier, during the Great March of Return mass protests in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military deployed D9s against unarmed civilian protestors.

In a notorious incident in 2003, an Israeli D9 bulldozer crushed to death American peace activist Rachel Corrie as she attempted to defend a Palestinian home from being demolished while the family was still inside. The Corrie family sued Caterpillar in the U.S. for "aiding and abetting war crimes and other serious human rights violations." While the court dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction, this incident sparked a grassroots campaign against the company. It was later revealed the Caterpillar hired private surveillance firms to infiltrate the campaign and spy on protestors and activists, including the Corrie family.

Human Rights Violations Using Other Equipment

Caterpillar supplies the Israeli military with other equipment, including various models of wheel loaders, armored excavators, and remote-controlled mini loaders known as "Front Runners" or "MiniCats." Modified for military use by IAI, MiniCats have been used, for example, in home demolitions and in a 2006 Israeli military raid on a Palestinian prison in Jericho in the occupied West Bank.

Caterpillar heavy machinery and equipment is regularly used in the construction and expansion of illegal Israeli settlements and their infrastructure in the occupied West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem. For example, Caterpillar excavators and wheel loaders were used in the construction of the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem railway, which cuts through occupied Palestinian land, as well as Israeli-only roads and the Israeli police headquarters in the illegal settlement city of Ma'ale Adumim in the occupied West Bank.

Various models of Caterpillar bulldozers, excavators, and wheel loaders have also been used in the construction and expansion of the illegal Separation Wall in the occupied West Bank, the Gaza-Israel barrier, and several military checkpoints in the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli military has also used the Bagger E-349, a weaponized, armored version of the Caterpillar 349E Hydraulic Excavator, to carry out extrajudicial executions of Palestinians.

Construction at US Prisons and the US-Mexico Border

Equipment and machinery manufactured by Caterpillar has also been used in various construction projects at U.S. prisons, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities, and the U.S.-Mexico border.

Between 2008 and 2021, the company signed 53 contracts with the Federal Prison System/Bureau of Prisons (BO)—for excavators, wheel loaders, tractors, and other construction machinery—worth just over $9 million.

Federal contracts also show that Caterpillar forklifts and other heavy machinery have been used by CBP and ICE. The use of Caterpillar equipment has also been documented at a construction side at the San Ysidro Port of Entry on the U.S-Mexico border in 2020.

Economic Activism Highlights
  • In March 2022, the Alma Mater Society, a student union at the university of British Columbia, passed a motion demanding that the university divest from nine companies complicit in human rights violations as part of the Israeli occupation of Palestine: Motorola Solutions Inc, General Mills Inc, Partner Communications LTD, Bezeq the Israeli Telecommunications Corporation, Cellcom Israel Ltd, Bank Hapoalim BM, Caterpillar, Hewlett Packard, and Lockheed Martin.
  • In August 2020, the University of Manchester divested more £10 million ($13 million) from companies complicit in Israel's occupation of Palestine, including Caterpillar and Booking.com.
  • In December 2019, the Brown University Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Practices passed a recommendation that the University divest from companies facilitating human rights abuses in Palestine including Boeing Co.
  • In October 2019, the Executive Council of The Episcopal Church adopted and implemented a global human rights investment screen, with criteria for Israel/Palestine conflict, including divesting immediately from Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions, and the Israel Discount Bank.
  • On March 3, 2019 the Swarthmore Student Government Organization passed a resolution calling on "Swarthmore College and its Board of Managers to implement a screen on investments in companies involved in repeated, well-documented, and severe violations of international human rights law in Israel / Palestine, including... Caterpillar Inc." 
  • On May 23, 2018, student government of the California State University- East Bay unanimously endorsed a divestment resolution calling to divest from corporations profiting from the occupation of Palestine. The companies listed include Motorola Solutions, G4S, Hewlett Packard, and Caterpillar.
  • On May 23, 2018, student groups at the University of Cambridge called for a boycott of Caterpillar and BAE Systems. The call was initiated by Cambridge University Palestine Society and Cambridge University Kurdish Society and signed by over 40 student groups and over 70 members of faculty and staff.
  • On April 18, 2018, Barnard College Student Government Association passed a referendum calling for the university to divest from eight companies profiting from Israel's occupation of Palestine. The companies listed include Hyundai, Caterpillar, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Elbit Systems, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Bank Hapoalim.
  • On March 22, 2018, Los Rios College Federation of Teachers passed a resolution to call for the Trustees to divest two public pension funds, Public Employees Retirement System and the State Teacher Retirement Systems, from corporations involved in the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The resolution named G4S and Caterpillar.
  • On April 5, 2017, the City Council of Portland, OR, voted to stop all new investment of city cash in corporate debt. "The vote followed hours of testimony from members of the public who said they did not want their tax dollars supporting corporations." While the decision impacts all corporate securities, Caterpillar was named specifically during public testimony. 
  • On March 15, 2017, the De Anza College Associated Student Body (DASB) passed a resolution to "divest from companies that violate international human rights law" in Palestine, naming specifically Caterpillar. This was the first community college to pass a divestment resolution related to human rights violations in Palestine. Students for Justice, the group that presented the resolution, told DASB that "by asking De Anza to divest, you are asking them to no longer take a side in this conflict."
  • On December 8, 2016, the Senate of the University of Manchester Student Union, the largest student union in the United Kingdom, voted in support of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel. The students called on the university administration to "end its ties with businesses and institutions that are particularly complicit in violations of Palestinian human rights." Specifically, the students demanded that the university sells its "investments in companies linked to Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people," including its £1 million shares in Caterpillar.
  • On May 31, 2016, students at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA voted overwhelmingly to endorse resolutions expressing support for freedom and equality for Palestinians. The students call on the Evergreen State College administration and Aramark to respect student democracy and comply with the resolution to condemn the presence of Caterpillar Inc. equipment on campus. 
  • On May 23, 2018, student groups at the University of Cambridge called for a boycott of Caterpillar and BAE Systems. The call was initiated by Cambridge University Palestine Society and Cambridge University Kurdish Society and signed by over 40 student groups and over 70 members of faculty and staff.
  • On April 12, 2016, the College Council of the University of Chicago passed a resolution to Divest University funds from apartheid, urging the university “ to withdraw, within the bounds of their fiduciary duty, investments in securities, endowments, mutual funds, and other monetary instruments with holdings in companies profiting from human rights abuses and violations of international law in Palestine, including, Caterpillar." 
  • March 25, 2016, The Unitarian Universalist Association and its endowment fund have implemented a human rights screen and divested from companies complicit in human rights violations, including Caterpillar.
  • March 17, 2016, the Portland Social Responsible Investments Committee voted to recommend the city end its investments in Caterpillar, stating that "Caterpillar is the model of corporate bad behavior."
  • On March 6, 2016, the Vassar Student Association voted to support the international BDS movement and to divest from companies profiting from Israeli human rights abuses, including Caterpillar.
  • The Undergraduate Student Government Assembly at the University of Illinois-Chicago, unanimously voted on February 16, 2016, to pass a resolution to divest from corporate profiting off the Israeli occupation and other human rights violations, including Caterpillar.  
  • On January 19, 2016, a landslide vote by the University of South Florida student senate passed a joint resolution to divest from corporations who profit from "illegal and brutal occupation" in Palestine, including Caterpillar. The resolution was later vetoed by the student government president.
  • In November 2015 the student government at San Jose State University voted to divest from "companies that play an active role in the human rights violations committed by the Israeli Government in the Occupied Palestinian Territories" including Caterpillar.In November 2015, the University of California Santa Cruz student government reinstated a divestment resolution against Caterpillar that had originally passed in 2014, but was suspended pending an appeals process. The resolution calls on the university to drop its investments in any company that "profits from the Israeli occupation of Palestine." 
  • In October 2015 the Human Rights Commission of the city of Portland, Oregon, endorsed a letter asking the city's Socially Responsible Investments Committee to recommend placing Caterpillar on the city's "Do Not Buy" list due to its complicity in "serious human rights violations in the ongoing illegal and brutal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land."
  • In June 2014, the Presbyterian Church’s General Assembly voted to divest from Caterpillar, citing eight years of unsuccessful engagement with the corporation over its involvement in home demolitions and other human rights violations in Israel/Palestine.
  • As of 2013, nine regional bodies of the United Methodist Church had passed resolutions against Caterpillar. In 2005, the Church began engaging Caterpillar over its sales contracts with the Israeli military.
  • In June 2012, pension fund TIAA-CREF removed Caterpillar from its Social Choice Account after Caterpillar's ESG rating was downgraded over the "use of the company's equipment in the occupied Palestinian Territories."
  • In April 2012, the Friends Fiduciary Corporation (Quakers) removed Caterpillar from its list of socially responsible corporations, stating that “Caterpillar sells bulldozers to the Israeli army to be weaponized and used in the systematic demolition of Palestinian homes and civilian infrastructure.”
  • In 2010 The Evergreen State College student body passed a resolution declaring the school a "CAT-free Zone, prohibiting the use of Caterpillar Inc. equipment on campus," due to the company's complicity in Evergreen student Rachel Corrie's murder, as well as the deaths of Palestinian civilians, destruction of Palestinian property, and building "Israel's Annexation Wall, which was declared illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004."
  • In February 2009, the Church of England announced that it had "withdrawn its investments" in Caterpillar after the Israeli military assault on Gaza.
  • Dutch Triodos Bank affirmed in 2008 that it “excludes companies that contribute to the continuation of the occupation, like...Caterpillar."

Caterpillar has also been the target of numerous college campus campaigns. Some of the student council divestment resolutions:

  • In November 2015 the student government at San Jose State University voted to divest from "companies that play an active role in the human rights violations committed by the Israeli Government in the Occupied Palestinian Territories" including Caterpillar. 
  • In November 2015, the University of California Santa Cruz student government reinstated a divestment resolution against Caterpillar that had originally passed in 2014, but was suspended pending an appeals process. The resolution calls on the university to drop its investments in any company that "profits from the Israeli occupation of Palestine."  
  • Princeton graduate students passed a referendum in May 2015 calling on the university to divest from companies such as Caterpillar as it is "complicit in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and blockade of the Gaza Strip."
  • In May 2015 the Olgethorpe University Student Senate passed a resolution to divest from Caterpillar “based on evidence of their active role in human rights abuses in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.”
  • In April 2015 the Student Senate of Earham College passed a resolution in support of divestment from "companies directly involved in the Israeli occupation of Palestine," including Caterpillar.
  • Stanford University students passed a resolution in February 2015 urging divestment from Caterpillar among other “companies implicated in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, many of which facilitate parallel injury against communities of color here in the United States.”
  • Northwestern University students voted to divest from Caterpillar in February 2015, citing its involvement in settlement expansion.
  • In February 2015 the University of California Student Association, the official governing assembly of all University of California students, passed a resolution calling for the university to divest from companies “that violate Palestinian human rights,” specifically mentioning Caterpillar.
  • In January 2015 the UC Davis student senate passed a divestment resolution urging the university to drop investments in Caterpillar because it “provides the Israeli military bulldozers used to demolish Palestinian property, including houses, refugee camps, basic infrastructure, and agriculture.” The bill was later repealed based on a constitutional technicality.
  • Students at UC Los Angeles passed a resolution to divest from Caterpillar in November 2014, for Caterpillar’s “continually providing engineering tools and  bulldozers routinely used in the demolition of Palestinian homes, refugee camps, water cisterns, and agricultural fields in the West Bank and Gaza”
  • A 2014 referendum passed by students at DePaul University decreed that Caterpillar “profit[s] from Israel's violation of the human rights of Palestinians and minorities within Israel.”
  • UC Riverside's undergraduate student council voted to divest in 2014 because of Caterpillar’s “providing engineering tools and bulldozers routinely used in the demolition of Palestinian homes, refugee camps, water cisterns, and agricultural fields.”
  • Loyola University in Chicago passed a 2014 divestment resolution stating that “Caterpillar sustains the occupation by providing tools and bulldozers to destroy Palestinian infrastructure such as homes, neighborhoods, and agricultural fields.”
  • Students at UC Santa Cruz in 2014 Caterpillar’s “tools have been used in demolitions of Palestinians' houses in the occupied territories, in the construction of the separation wall and settlements on Palestinian land, in military incursions and as weapons.”
  • The University of Michigan Dearborn student senate voted in 2014 to create an advisory committee to examine Caterpillar because it “produces and sells bulldozers that the Israeli military uses to demolish Palestinian homes.”
  • Wesleyan University’s student senate in 2014 voted to divest student endowment from Caterpillar “complicit in the illegal occupation of Palestine.”
  • In 2014, the University of New Mexico’s Graduate and Professional Student Association voted to divest from Caterpillar, because it “has...provided engineering tools and bulldozers to expand illegal settlements and construct the Separation Wall and checkpoints throughout the West Bank.”
  • UC San Diego's student senate voted to divest in March 2013, stating “Caterpillar-provided D9 bulldozers are used against Palestinian civilians and peace activists, including the murder of Evergreen College student Rachel Corrie.”
  • UC Berkeley, in April 2013, passed a resolution against Caterpillar because it “has helped sustain the illegal occupation by providing bulldozers and engineering tools used to destroy Palestinian homes and farmland.”
  • The Oberlin College student senate voted to divest from Caterpillar in May 2013, due to “injustices perpetrated on the Palestinian people by Israel.” 
  • Undergraduate students at Arizona State University, in June 2012, voted to divest from and blacklist Caterpillar due to its “complicit[y] in human rights abuses in the occupied Palestinian Territories.”
  • In November of 2012, the Associated Students at UC Irvine voted unanimously to divest from Caterpillar, citing its use of “engineering tools and bulldozers to destroy Palestinian houses, neighborhoods (in refugee camps), agriculture, and water cisterns.”
  • In November 2012, the Brown University Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Policies recommended that Brown divest from Caterpillar and other companies which are "profiting from the illegal occupation of Palestinian territories."
  • In 2009, the Board of Trustees at Hampshire College, following a two-year student campaign, approved divestment from Caterpillar due to “human rights concerns in occupied Palestine.”
Unless specified otherwise, the information in this page is valid as of
12 September 2022