The Louisville-based Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is being asked to approve a statement that “strongly denounces” the Caterpillar corporation for profiting from Israel’s use of its heavy equipment for “clearly non-peaceful purposes.”

The church committee recommending the statement is not calling on the denomination to pull its investments from Caterpillar — an approach that drew heavy criticism when Presbyterians first proposed it five years ago. But a major Jewish advocacy group says the proposal shows the denomination to be biased against Israel.

Caterpillar issued a statement saying it expects its customers to use its equipment properly but can’t always monitor its uses.
The Presbyterians’ Committee on Mission Responsibility Through Investment issued a draft statement saying that “Caterpillar, Inc. has produced, sold and profited from equipment that has been and continues to be used … for clearly non-peaceful purposes.”
The measure would denounce Caterpillar’s “continued profit-making from non-peaceful uses of a number of its products” and call upon the company to “take affirmative steps to end its complicity in the violation of human rights.”

The committee said Israel has used militarized Caterpillar bulldozers in the recent Gaza and Lebanon wars and has used its equipment to bulldoze Palestinian homes and to create Israeli settlements, roads and barriers in Palestinian lands.