REMEMBER RACHEL CORRIE Rachel, a 23 year old American student and peace activist, was killed by an Israeli soldier on March 16th, 2003. The Israeli soldier crushed her with a Caterpillar bulldozer while she was attempting to protect a Palestinian home in Gaza from being illegally razed. Rachel's parents spearheaded a campaign to have an independent investigation into her death which failed because congresspersons such as our own Mike Capuano did not support it. Representative Capuano said to Somerville's constituents that he would not support the bill because of pressure from the pro-apartheid, pro-Israel lobby. Rachel is one of many that have been killed. Since fall 2000, over 3,800 Palestinians and over 1,000 Israeli have been killed. We hear about the Israeli dead but we rarely hear about the many times more Palestinian dead. We don't hear about the mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, sisters and brothers who are killed and mutilated during all those wonderful periods of "relative calm" or "ceasefires" our news media lie to us about. Somerville has thousands of dollars invested in Caterpillar Inc., a company which profits by knowingly selling armored bulldozers to commit extreme and frequent human rights violations that Amnesty International labels war crimes. 
The movement for divestment from companies like Caterpillar has received a big boost when 4,500 Somerville residents signed a petition calling for divestment to be put on the November ballot. The number of divestment supporters - it includes many churches - continues to grow. It is critical that Somerville divest from Caterpillar Tractor and other funds that are directly tied to horrific Israeli human rights violations - ethnic cleansing, home demolitions, torture, bombings of civilians - that work against a just solution to the Middle East conflict. Join us! Come to the new Center for Palestinian Human Rights in Harvard Square (11 Garden Street, Cambridge) and visit the Somerville Divestment Project website: http://www.divestmentproject.org/ Somerville Divestment Project  External links to other Internet sites should not be construed as an endorsement of the views contained therein. SDP does not necessarily endorse the material on this website unless it is an official SDP statement.
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