Since 1956 the Caterpillar D9 has been imported to Israel, a bulldozer that would remain pivotal for their brutal colonization efforts around the region. The D9 first took part in Israel’s invasion of Egypt during the Sinai War, and subsequently became the heavy machinery of choice for Israel’s territorial expansion goals. In the 1980s Israel began to modify the D9 to further increase its destruction and crowd control capabilities, adding over 10 tons of armor and weapons to an already overpowered machine, this granted D9 IDF operators absolute shielding while they performed all kinds of atrocities, including running over journalists and crushing families hiding in their homes.
Nowadays Caterpillar sells the newer D9R to Israel, each bulldozer going for about $900,000, it earns the cynical nickname “Teddy Bear” from the IDF once its modifications and weapons are mounted. These million dollar weapons of destruction have become the spearhead of Israel’s ground invasions in Gaza, after urban areas have been bombed to the ground it’s up to the D9R operators to create a safe path through the rubble for Israeli soldiers while they hunt for survivors. Caterpillar D9R bulldozers are also used in one of the IDF’s preferred methods of dealing with Palestinians hiding in their homes, which is to just demolish the structure without minding if anyone inside survives, “Pressure Cooker” is the name the IDF has given to this sinister method of killing civilians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
In the official webpage of Caterpillar a post was made to celebrate the 25 years of the D9R model, in this post you will find the following line “The D9R is simple to maintain and economical to own, whether it’s handling heavy construction in the Middle East…”, it’s astonishing for a company which has so openly profited from the suffering and ethnic cleansing of people in the middle east to put out this kind of content. Caterpillar took their cynicism even further and in Oct. 24, 2023 they published a 1 million dollar donation, what Israel pays them for a single D9R, the donation went to “the tragic events in Israel and the growing humanitarian crisis in the region” without even mentioning Gaza and its people. This is a company that has aligned its interests with Israel’s campaign to dehumanize Palestinians.
In 2003 Rachel Corrie, a U.S journalist, was crushed to death by a Caterpillar D9R, a death that many Palestinians before and after her have suffered. Corrie’s family with the support of Palestinians filed a lawsuit against Caterpillar, the case was dismissed in 2005, a result that reflects the expected legal immunity of a company that spends millions in lobbying every year while also supporting the interests of the U.S government. After decades of countless deaths, homes and lives in ruins, Caterpillar still faces no consequences for supplying and enabling a genocide.
Caterpillar keeps sending hundreds of these bulldozers to Israel, on february 28 Marco Rubio announced that “emergency authorities” were used to bypass the U.S congress and send $4 billion in weapons to Israel, $295 million will go toward new D9R and D9T bulldozers, spare parts and logistics support from Caterpillar. Caterpillar is directly and publicly involved in the genocide againsts Paletinians.
Among the major shareholders of Caterpillar you’ll find the usual suspects when it comes to war investments and weapons production. Morgan Stanley, Blackrock, and Vanguard Group all hold multi-billion dollar stakes in the company. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation owns 7.4 million shares of Caterpillar, an investment valued at 2.7 billion dollars. The Caterpillar’s board of directors led by its CEO James Umpleby refuses to answer for their public involvement in crimes against humanity.
Putrid Profits 