"This
is the first time that bulldozers have determined the outcome of
a war"
The
Catepillar Effect
by Neve Gordon
CounterPunch
2 June 2002
"This is the first time that bulldozers have determined the
outcome of a war," L., one of the Palestinian fighters from
the Jenin refugee camp was recently quoted in the Israeli daily
Yedioth Ahronot. The officer in charge of the military penetration
into the camp affirmed L.'s claim, declaring in the same article
that the D9 drivers had won the day. And indeed, every television
station around the world showed graphic pictures of Jenin houses
turned debris.
Human Rights Watch's fact-finding team found that in contrast to
other parts of the camp where armored D9 Caterpillars were used
mainly to widen streets, in Hawashin district they razed the entire
neighborhood. The Israeli military caused disproportionate destruction
to the refugee camp's civilian infrastructure, a senior Human Rights
Watch researcher averred, adding: "The abuses we documented
in Jenin are extremely serious, and in some cases appear to be war
crimes."
At least 140 buildings were completely leveled -- many of them
multi-family dwellings --while over 200 others were severely damaged,
leaving an estimated 4,000 people, more than a quarter of the camp's
population, homeless.
Thirty-seven-year-old Jamal Fayid, paralyzed from his waist down,
was one of the D9 casualties. According to the rights organization,
he was crushed in the wreckage because Israeli soldiers did not
allow family members to take him out of his home. The Caterpillar
killed him.
D9 bulldozers were put to use in other places as well. In a report
published by the Israeli rights group, B'tselem, one reads how Caterpillars
were employed to destroy houses in Nablus's old city in order to
make way for Israeli tanks. When the military left the neighborhood
six days later, Palestinians discovered that ten residents had been
inside one of the houses when the demolition took place. 65-year-old
Abdallah a-Sha'abi was rescued together with his 53-year-old wife;
the rest were not so lucky.
Israel's draconian demolition policy was not, however, invented
in operation "Defensive Shield." For many years now, D9s
have been employed as a military weapon. Less than four months before
the Jenin attack, some 58 houses were destroyed in Rafah, rendering
at least 500 people homeless in the midst of a cold winter -- 300
of whom are children.
The razing of houses in the past months, while unusual in its scale,
is part of a long-term low-intensity warfare tactic that often escapes
public attention. According to Jeff Halper, from the Israeli Committee
Against House Demolitions, "more than 7,000 houses have been
demolished by Israel since 1967, leaving tens of thousands of Palestinians
traumatized and homeless."
The Israeli government and military is, to be sure, responsible
for the demolitions, which are -- according to today's international
legal framework -- in many cases considered war crimes. However,
without the big D9 bulldozers supplied by Caterpillar, it would
have been very difficult to destroy the houses.
When Caterpillar began doing business with Israel, it could not
have known that its products -- which are manufactured for civilian
use -- would be employed to commit war crimes. Now, however, the
corporation does know and insofar as it maintains a business as
usual stance, it too is implicated in the violations.
It is interesting to note that the Israeli Supreme Court might
very well agree with this assessment. In their sentencing of the
Nazi-criminal, Adolf Eichmann, the Supreme Court Judges stated that
"the extent to which any one of the many criminals was close
to or remote from the actual killer of the victim means nothing,
as far as the measure of responsibility is concerned. On the contrary,
in general the degree of responsibility increases as we draw further
away from the man who uses the fatal instrument with his own hands."
This truism gains new meaning in the age of globalization. Decisions
made in one part of the world frequently affect another, and the
process of identifying those responsible has become more complicated.
The identity of violators does not only include state actors, like
Eichmann, but also corporations, international financial institutions,
and individuals. Finally, responsibility is not limited to those
determining the policy, giving the orders, or carrying out the act,
but extends to those who supply the perpetrators with the instruments
of destruction.
Caterpillar should not necessarily stop all transactions with Israel,
but it must introduce a new clause in its contracts to ensure that
products are not employed to perpetrate human rights violations.
Globalization offers new opportunities for corporations like Caterpillar,
but these opportunities must have a price as well -- the expansion
of responsibility. A legal framework that calls attention to this
type of responsibility is currently being developed, and while it
remains difficult to enforce, the day will come when CEOs will stand
trial for their support of and collaboration in war crimes.
Neve Gordon teaches politics at Ben-Gurion University, Israel,
and can be reached at ngorodon@bgumail.bgu.ac.il
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