Thursday, April 22, 2010

Minnesota students lock-down a Caterpillar plant, citing ‘ethnic cleansing’ and occupation

From Mondoweiss
"Wow, another sign that Israel/Palestine is coming home, and that the American left has taken on the issue: a half-dozen Macalester College students, in St. Paul, Minnesota, participated in a lockdown of a Caterpillar distribution plant yesterday, and managed to block a driveway at the plant for some hours. The students know the issue.
"Specially armored Caterpillar bulldozers are Israel's tools for the relentless, slow-motion destruction of Palestinian lives, homes, and livelihoods. Israel uses Caterpillar to demolish Palestinian homes, rip up Palestinian olive groves, and to build new settler homes with manicured lawns and central air. Since 1967, Israel has demolished 24,145 Palestinian homes in the Occupied Territories; in the same time period, Israel has built 214 settlements and erected a separation wall which cuts deep into the West Bank. Time after time, settlements 'spring up' right where they are most disruptive to local economies, while Israel further shatters trade routes and freedom of movement with Apartheid walls, Israeli-only roads, and pervasive checkpoints. The goal is to push Palestinian's off the land, leaving it open for Israeli settlement. This is not a complicated issue--Israel is enacting a policy of ethnic cleansing and Apartheid onto the Palestinian peoples.

We've put our bodies here today to oppose Caterpillar's participation in occupation and injustice."

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