3/16/2005: On the second anniversary of the death of Rachel Corrie, killed by a Caterpillar D9 bulldozer while defending the home of a Palestinian civilian, around sixty people gathered at the gates of the Peterson Tractor Company in San Leandro, California. The activists, organized by A Jewish Voice for Peace, held a spirited protest against Caterpillar's continuing sales of bulldozers to the U.S. Department of Defense (which are then delivered to the Israeli military under a Foreign Military Sales Agreement).

As a line of protestors displayed banners to passing traffic condemning Israeli Defense Forces use of CAT equipment to destroy Palestinian homes, others gathered at a partly open gate and began saying Kaddish, the traditional Jewish prayer for the dead, for Corrie. Penny Rosenwasser, one of six activists who managed to get inside the gate before police and company security kept others outside, spoke over a bullhorn about the grim reality of what CAT equipment does in the occupied territories. Rosenwasser recalled how on a 2001 International Solidarity Movement trip to Rafah refugee camp she witnessed the wreckage of 200 houses which had been demolished the night before by CAT bulldozers; the local children were, not surprisingly, completely terrorized. The bulldozers were also used to destroy olive trees and wells, which Rachel Corrie committed herself to helping protect from such attacks.

The crowd repeatedly chanted for Duane Doyle, CEO of Peterson Tractor, to meet with them, but there was no sign of Doyle or any other higher-up at the dealership. JVP activists distributed a flyer demanding that Doyle, as an owner of Caterpillar stock, support a shareholder resolution which calls on the corporation to investigate Israel's use of its equipment. The flyer also called on Doyle to tell the Caterpillar Board of Directors to meet with Rachel Corrie's parents.

Activist Kate Raphael, who has spent significant periods in the occupied territories, then spoke about how Rachel Corrie is known throughout the Arab world and seen as an important symbol of international solidarity. Though the six inside were prepared to face arrest for carrying out civil disobedience, the authorities were apparently not in a mood to press charges; no one was arrested

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