Tractors

When I was growing up in rural upstate New York, my brother and I used to wake up in the summer to the “put-put-put” of a 2 cylinder John Deere tractor that our neighbor down the road used to till his fields. This tractor has a very distinctive sound as it has a very large fly wheel and it seems like the engine only fires about twice a minute. To this day the sound of this vintage tractor still conjures up visions of green tractors, green corn fields and the smell of fresh mowed hay. Our recent trip to the West Bank of Israel/Palestine exposed me to a whole different vision of tractors. The rumble of an Israeli armored bulldozer combined with the “rat-tat-tat” of machine guns presents a completely different scenario. The image of these huge yellow pieces of equipment painted over in camouflage destroying olive groves, leveling houses and occasionally killing young American women (if you don’t know this story click here) can hardly be called bucolic. The destruction of homes and lives reeked by these tractors has brought the Caterpillar Company to the forefront of efforts by some liberal Protestant churches to encourage divestment from companies that facilitate the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. (for more on this click here) When Caterpillar was contacted about this issue their response was that “we have no right to control how our customers use the pieces of equipment that we sell them.” For me it is hard to visualize what productive use could be made of an armored bulldozer with a machine gun on top. Maybe someone can enlighten me.