I just don't even know what to say about this. I really don't.
A United Nations human rights investigator last week warned Peoria-based Caterpillar Inc. against selling construction equipment to Israel because it "might involve complicity ... to actual and potential violations of human rights, including the right to food." Caterpillar, which recently rejected a proposal put to stockholders to review its sales to Israel, said it cannot control how purchasers use equipment.
Jean Ziegler, an expert on the right to food in the Geneva offices of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, sent a letter to Caterpillar CEO James Owens on May 28 complaining that "Israeli occupation forces" are "using armored bulldozers supplied by your company to destroy agricultural farms, greenhouses, ancient olive groves and agricultural fields planted with crops, as well as numerous Palestinian homes and sometimes human lives, including that of the American peace activist, Rachel Corrie."
Oh yes, "the right to food" again. And Mr. Zeigler's warning sounds quite official, right? Well, not exactly.
While Ziegler's letter was written under the letterhead of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, a spokesman for that office told Reuters that human rights investigators like Ziegler were "independent experts who act in their personal capacity."
Ziegler is a Swiss university professor who has previously criticized Israeli treatment of the Palestinians, the Associated Press reported.
Imagine my surprise.
Of course, Zeigler is just a piece in a much broader campaign in which, naturally, the ISM is involved, notwithstanding that its (the campaign's) website is apparently the spawn of a group called "Jewish Voice for Peace." Yes.
There's more, but I don't have the stomach for it right now.
