IN 2003, RACHEL CORRIE, 23, a U.S. college senior, was killed by a bulldozer. This was not a freak accident. Corrie was in Gaza with a team of peace activists, nonviolently protecting Palestinian homes from demolition. The bulldozer operator was an Israel Defense Forces soldier. The Cat D9 was made in East Peoria, Illinois. Corrie’s family subsequently sued Caterpillar for war crimes and extra-judicial killing — without success.
We rarely think of construction equipment as a weapon. How much less do we think of U.S. companies such as Airbnb, Expedia, and Tripadvisor as part of the war machinery?
This June, the United Nations released an investigation into the corporate machinery sustaining Israel’s ongoing anti-Palestinian project. The report adds 48 international corporations, institutions, and charitable organizations to a list of more than 1,000 corporate entities that, violating international law, profit from Israel’s project to displace, replace, and now eliminate Palestinians.
Caterpillar continues to sell Israel “dual-use” (civilian and military) heavy machinery. Since October 2023, Caterpillar equipment has been used to carry out mass demolitions of homes and hospitals, plow under crops, and even bury alive wounded Palestinians. In 2025, Caterpillar secured a new multimillion-dollar contract with Israel.
We rarely think of construction equipment as a weapon. How much less do we think of U.S. companies such as Airbnb, Expedia, and Tripadvisor as part of the war machinery? Yet they make millions providing services that support Israel’s settlement system. Against international law, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), and Amazon — also American companies — grant Israel “virtually government-wide access to their cloud and artificial intelligence technologies” according to the U.N. report; without this, it would be impossible to guide armed drones or activate smartphone surveillance.
Additionally, faith-based charities enable Israel’s illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territory. The Israel-based Jewish National Fund supports Israeli military infrastructure and West Bank settlements; the U.S. branch of JNF is the largest contributor. The U.S.-based Christian Friends of Israeli Communities sent $1.2 million to projects in the settlements in 2023. According to tax returns, 65% of that support went to surveillance cameras, control rooms, emergency command centers, surveillance vehicles, drones, and communication devices in settlement areas.
The weapons supply to Hamas militants is outside the scope of the U.N. report. But in the past, Hamas got much of their vastly inferior weaponry from Iran, China, and Russia. After Israel’s near total blockade of Gaza began in 2007, Hamas has improvised by stealing from their enemy and repurposing unexploded ordnance. Last year, Israeli intelligence officials concluded that “a significant number of weapons used by Hamas in the Oct. 7 attacks and in the war in Gaza came from an unlikely source: the Israeli military itself,” according to The New York Times. Since the U.S. supplies two-thirds of Israel’s conventional arms, many of those weapons were likely American-made by Lockheed Martin.
War profiteering is not new. Josiah E. DuBois, a lead war crimes prosecutor at the Nuremburg “industrialist trials” after World War II, called the leaders of the companies that manufactured the infrastructure for mass killing “the generals-in-gray-suits.” In 2022, Pope Francis called out the greed of CEOs who make millions off violence. “This is why some people don’t want peace: they make more money from war,” Francis said.
As Christians, we can be conscientious objectors to this ever-expanding war industry.
Rose Marie Berger, a Catholic peace activist and poet, is senior editor of Sojourners magazine. She is author ofBending the Arch: Poems.
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