Israelis use bulldozers to wreck crops in South Lebanon

[Jcrowley]

SOUTH LEBANON: Israeli bulldozers started to level the soil and cut down olive trees in Yarin in the Tyre region on Monday, spoiling several cultivated fields and preventing farmers from inspecting their lands. "Israeli bulldozers have spoiled my land, cutting down the fruit trees I've planted," said farmer Shaker Afleh on Tuesday, as he and his daughter watched the bulldozers on his land from a kilometer away.

Israel's earth-movers have cut down several trees belonging to more than 10 members of the Abu Dellah family.

"Bulldozers have been leveling the soil for two days, trying to expand the Blue Line at the expense of our land and livelihoods," Abdallah Abu Dellah said on Tuesday.

"The international force has done nothing but register Israel's daily violations of Lebanon's territory," he said.

Shepherds refrained from escorting their herds to the fields for fear of being shot by the Israeli soldiers, one resident told The Daily Star.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=1&article_id=75576

[LynnTheDem]

1. What's another war crime amongst so very many.

What's another violation of the Geneva Conventions against so many.

USA.

Israel.

Rightwingnuts.

There is the "triangle of death & evil".

[Tom Joad]

2. That's why there is a growing boycott of Caterpillar Corporation.

As my friend Muley told me, they are tractored out by the Cats.
Same old story. Read what the Cats (Caterpillar bulldozers) did to the likes of neighbors in the Dust bowl,as described by Steinbeck. http://tomjoad.org/Homes.htm

This is a different context, but it is more likely than not Israel is using Caterpillar weaponized bulldozers as the tool for to destroy these people's lives. They are routinely used in occupied Palestine as well. Many consider the manner of their use amounts to war crimes. And Caterpillar makes the choice to profit off this.

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/11/22/isrlpa9711.htm
Human Rights Watch

The Presbyterian Church will likely divest itself of all shares of Caterpillar, as part of its efforts to promote peace in the region.

See more here:
http://stopcat.org

[The Magistrate]

4. Sounds Like A Tempest In A Tea-Pot, Sir

Stock sales by church groups do nothing to harm the corporation, or even much affect the price of its shares. Heavy equipment manufacturers here in the U.S. do face some heavy going, as there are foriegn firms with price advantages. But no one looking for heavy equipment to buy is going to be moved much by this. Of course, what amounts to a crusade to throw union workers out of work in the U.S. is unlikely to gain much traction with the voting public here. No political figure with the slightest interest in getting a large number of votes in the U.S. is going to associate publicly with it.

[Tom Joad]

6. "Crusade to throw union workers out of work", it is not, Mr. Magistrate

such a bold misrepresentation of what is going on here.
It was a common tactic for those opposing sanctions against South Africa as well.

Those who support the effort to get Caterpillar to adhere to its own ethical policies, care about workers, both here and Palestine/Israel.

Do you think the letter from Human Rights Watch was also part of the effort to "throw union workers out of work"?

[The Magistrate]

8. Of Course That Is What It Is, Sir

It is an attempt to reduce the sales booked by the company, which by reducing its income must inexorably lead to the laying off of workers who would otherwise be employed building the equipment that has not been ordered. That is how boycott of a company works, on those oinstances where it works at all. You may well be of the view that the throwing out of work of a number of blue-collar types in the U.S. is a small price to pay for realizing in some measure your own views of justice in the Middle East, but it is unlikely the people actually affected would agree with you. It is just this sort of thing that feeds the disenchantment with the left displayed by a great many of our citizens who would ought to be responsive to left positions on domestic matters.

[Tom Joad]

10. Was the Montgomery Bus Boycott an effort to unemploy city bus

drivers?

Check this.
http://stopcat.org/cat_workers.html

[The Magistrate]

11. Probably From The Drivers' Point Of View, Sir

It must have appeared so. They were also people charged with directly enforcing the discriminatory policy.

Your link seems to have no connection with any organized workers in the company plants, but to be a mere showcase for enthusiasts. Statements of "sensitivity" and "solidarity" mean nothing. The thing you propose can only succeed by doing real economic damage to the company, and that means loss of employment among the workers it employs. You may think their sacrifice to gain your end worth that; they would probably take a different view, and prefer to make their own choice concerning what sacrifices, and to what ends, they wished to make of their livelihoods. This is one of the kinds of crusade that makes a great contribution to the unpopularity of the left in this country among the mass of wage-earners: they identify the left with this sort thing, and recoil against it, as something that does not share their concerns, or give a damn for their well-being.

[Tom Joad]

12. I give a damn about our well being.

[The Magistrate]

13. Your 'Our', Sir

Would seem to omit persons employed by the Caterpillar corporation....

And doubtless there are other companies you feel make material contribution to Israeli power, that should this succeed, would be next in line, so that it would be hard to see an end to it.

The saving grace, of course, is that it has no real prospect of achieving anything. Those long strip banners give the thing away: those are a tool of a small but disciplined faction to make themselves appear much larger in photographs of a march or assembly than they actually bulk, by stationing cadre at the flanks and spreading them over casual attendees and members of less artful groups also present.

[Violet_Crumble]

14. I take it you feel this way about all boycotts?

Or is it just Israel you feel this strongly about?

[Tom Joad]

16. Forgotten in all this is that U.S. taxpayers foot the bill for these

weaponized bulldozers. So these funds that go to Caterpillar is really just a government handout, although indirect (US gives money to Israel, Israel buys weapons from the US). Couldn't the same amount be used to subsidize rebuilding homes in the US and rebuilding our infrastructure rather than destroying homes and crops and bridges in the Middle East? One would think so. In fact, by leaving out the middle man, many more jobs would be created. Destroying the Middle East should not be promoted as an efficient jobs program.

It is also forgotten that Caterpillar is basically sending weaponry to the Middle East. It is a long tradition of at least a few religious communities to shy away from the promotion of war. Not all in the U.S. have adapted what i would call the morally-bankrupt theology of Bush and war promotion. So the Presbyterian Church stance is natural and traditional. It will be followed by others, secular and religious, to bring an end to conflict in the Middle East. To demand the end of profits gained by making others miserable.

[The Magistrate]

20. In Other Words, Sir

The money, after a brief tour, winds up mostly back in the U.S., with much of it in the pockets of employees of U.S. companies. In this instance specifically, the pockets of Caterpillar employees. Certainly it would be more efficient simply to pass money out to people here, if the purpose were simply benefit to workers, and such a policy would certainly meet with my approval. But all government expenditure is pitched to buy something, with benefits like money in a worker's pocket an incidental by-product of the purchase, and once one gets past those expenditures that are mere thievery and enrichment of cronies, the standard of both utility and popularity is whether the government actually gets something for the outlay, and whether the people agree what is got is good.

The fact remains that support for Israel is general and deep among the people of this country. It has been viewed as a close ally of the country for some forty years at least. Its enemies have been viewed by the people of the country for that time as the enemies of our country as well, a feeling rooted in Cold War alignments, and continued and cemented with the various murder campaigns of radical Arabs and Moslems of various stripes conducted around the world against it, and aginst the United States, both during the Cold War and in the present day. Thus, support for Israel is quite popular, and people accordingly do not begrudge what monies are expended in concrete expression of their attachment to that country. You will find no national political figure in this country, and damned few local ones, who express anything but support for Israel in their campaigns, and no major party platform that does not include support for Israel as a major plank.

[The Magistrate]

21. You Will Be Aware, Ma'am, From Our Long Friendship Here

That it is my custom to concentrate on what things actually are, rather than on what it would be rather nice if they were. What a boycott is is an attempt to do economic harm to various commercial concerns, a chief effect of which is to throw a number of their employees out of work. To pretend it is anything else is pointless. To argue that it is anything else requires levels of disingenuousness and sophistry unbecoming to a serious mind. My distaste for sanctions, or to give them their right name, blockade short of war, is similarly rooted: though presented as a policy somehow mild and humane, their actual impact could be reasonably replicated simply by periodically bombing a few maternity wards and old folks' homes, and scattering a handful of incendiaries over the poorer quarters of the towns. People do better to face up fully to what they are doing, and state openly they intend to harm someone, and think that harm worth inflicting to gain something they prefer, rather than to pretend doing harm is the furthest thing from their minds, and that harming people to achieve some desired end is wrong.

"We don't know what we want, but we're ready to bite somebody to get it."

[msmcghee]

15. A slight disagreement.

You say, "The saving grace, of course, is that it has no real prospect of achieving anything."

I would only disagree in that the one thing sure to be achieved by this effort is to further implant in the minds of blue-collar workers in the US - the political distance between them and the political left who are supporting it.

I sometimes wonder how much of the success of the right in the US over the last few decades can be accounted for by the takeover of the left by those who have never had to earn their living at any hard labor or in a factory and who have never served in the military - and would avoid such a fate at all costs.

It's been my experience that people who find themselves at a station in life where they must work hard for a living in somewhat risky occupations have an understandable disdain for taking advice from those who would rather talk the talk - than walk the walk.

[The Magistrate]

18. That Is True Enough, Ma'am

In regard to this particular campaign, to the degree that it gains publicity, it will act to reinforce that general trend. That trend is unfortunately real, and of very long standing. There is a good deal of nonesense talked in some quarters about how "DLC" or "centerist" policies have divorced the Democratic Party from working people, but the fact of the matter is the seperation of the left in this country from its natural wage-earning constituency commenced in the late sixties, and owes largely to concentration by left activists on anti-war activities and life-style issues, rather than economic concerns. The first factor has rooted very deeply in the popular mind the view that the left is an anti-patriotic force, and the second has rooted very deeply in the popular mind the view that the left is concerned principally with frivolous things. The working class in this country is intensely patriotic, and people consumed by the tasks of working for a living actively resent people who have time for frivolities. Electoral politics is an exercise in building group identities, and the essential item is a feeling of identification with the standard-bearer and those who follow the standard. A great number of people who really ought, if they were clear-eyed about what is best for them, to identify with the left, simply will not do so, because they will not identify with something they see as anti-patriotic and frivolous. If it were simply a question of a few fringe elements consigning themselves to impotence, this would be of no signifigance and do no real harm. But the fact is that the mass of people in this country view the Democratic Party as the electoral expression of the left, and the view they take of the left accordingly conditions the view they take of the Democratic Party. This means that real harm is done by left excesses: they translate at the polls into fewer votes for Democratic candidates, and more votes for Republican ones.

[breakaleg]

3. Why can't they put a buffer zone on their side of the border?

[The Magistrate]

5. A Cleared Zone, Sir

Is intended to render difficult stealthy approach to the border from the other side. No purpose would be served by such a zone inside the border, unless one intended to keep people from fleeing the country, and the problem is hardly flight by Israelis into Lebanon against the will of the Israeli government. Until such point as either the U.N. forces, or the Lebanese army, maintain garrissons and patrols on the Lebanese side of the border adequate to prevent infiltration by Hezbollah gun-men intending attacks on Israeli border forces, a measure like this is a reasonable if unfortunate one to take.

[breakaleg]

7. Except for the fact that it's not their land! They have no right to

demolish farms or anything inside another country!

They always have a ton of excuses for their illegal acts. But if they really want security and international support, then they should confine themselves to their own country. Rather than destroying the livelihood of innocent civilians abroad.

[The Magistrate]

9. There Are Limits To Time And Energy, Sir

Though seemingly none to the amount of items one could choose to feel outrage over. One must budget anger, like anything else, or simply go mad with it. Something this does not even make my "maybe next Teusday" list; it is more appropriate for the "when the grand-children are in high school, perhaps there will be time for it" file, which is, admittedly, bulging already, and may need an extra folder soon.

It is in the power of the Lebanese government, should it choose to do so, to render such an action wholly unnecessary, and hence unreasonable and worthy of condemnation. It simply has to do its duty as the government fo a sovereign state and take the measures necessary to prevent armed gangs mounting attacks against another state from its territory. Until this is done, this measure does not excite me at all.

[oblivious]

22. Your posts make me smile.

"It is in the power of the Lebanese government"

"It simply has to do its duty"

Oh, if only life were so simple.

[ShortnFiery]

17. But NATO can't touch The Poppy crops in Afghanistan. :( eom

[The Magistrate]

19. That, Ma'am, Is Because People Shoot At Them When They Try

Life can be a funny thing....