Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights

May 28, 2024

Native American Tribes are Partnered with Corporations Responsible for War Crimes in Palestine



Police violently attacked pro-Palestine protesters at the University of Arizona in Tucson, who are opposing genocide. University of Arizona's Tech Park is home to the Salish and Kootenai's International Towers, a partnership with Israel's Elbit Systems, and Raytheon Missiles which produces missile parts on the Navajo Nation. (Image KTAR)

Three Native American Tribes are doing business with corporations responsible for war crimes in Palestine:  Israel's Elbit Systems, and the U.S. Corporations of Raytheon Missiles, General Dynamics and Caterpillar

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, May 28, 2024

TUCSON -- Native American Tribes are partnered with corporations responsible for war crimes in Palestine. The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribe of Montana is in a partnership with Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapons producer. Salish and Kootenai own International Towers, and in partnership with Elbit, built spy towers, known as integrated fixed towers, on the Tohono O'odham Nation.

Caterpillar, being used for the destruction of Palestinian homes, has a facility located on the Tohono O'odham Nation's Tech Park in the San Xavier District near Tucson.

Raytheon Dine' Facility, is located on the Navajo Nation south of Farmington, New Mexico, and produces missile parts for Raytheon, among the top war profiteers in Palestine.

Raytheon, and International Towers, are tenants at the University of Arizona Tech Park in Tucson.

Ofelia Rivas, Tohono O'odham, lives in the western portion of the Tohono O'odham Nation, where the Salish and Kootenai tribal enterprise constructed the spy towers. Rivas describes the militarized partnership.

"Infiltration today is in our faces, a blatant lack of integrity by tribes and institutions. Tribal governments are enticed by university programs for young people. The young people unknowingly become partners and collaborators of the international military complex," Rivas told Censored News today.

"Government military pay large dollars to universities to develop military technology. At the University of Arizona spy technology developed at the university was tested on Tohono O'odham Nation members at the US border patrol checkpoint located at every entry/exit of the reservation."

"Technology parks are created and enticed by US military funding, and are on our lands, Tohono O'odham Nation and Navajo for example. Tribal-owned International Towers are partners with Elbit Systems to construct spy towers in our communities that to date have not provided data on long term impacts on animal, plant and human life."

"Our next generation will inherit this militarization partnership."


International Towers: Salish and Kootenai business built spy towers

International Towers, owned by the Salish and Kootenai, built the spy towers on the western portion of the Tohono O'odham Nation. International Towers has a facility located on the University of Arizona Tech Park in Tucson.

The university brought in police to brutalize and shoot peaceful students with rubber bullets and tear gas twice at the pro-Palestine encampments in Tucson. Tucson police, Pima County Sheriff's Department and Arizona State law enforcement came in shielded by the cover of darkness at night to brutalize students and shut down their camps.

Regarding its contract, Salish and Kootenai said that International Towers partnered with Elbit Systems for the Integrated Fixed Tower contract for U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Southern Arizona, in the Casa Grande sector, which includes the western portion of the Tohono O'odham Nation.

The tribal enterprise said, "Through this Program ITL installed over 50 new IFT Sensor and Communications Towers in remote locations in S. Arizona."

Photo International Towers

Now, the Salish and Kootenai tribally-owned business is contracted for work on video surveillance systems with another U.S. defense contractor in southern Arizona.

International Towers said it is now working as a subcontractor for General Dynamics Information Technology, and installed upgraded equipment on over 70 towers as part of an upgrade modification for the U.S. Border Patrol in Southern Arizona.

General Dynamics, the world's sixth largest weapons manufacturer, supplies Israel with artillery ammunition and bombs for attack jets used in Israel's assault on Gaza.

International Towers is part of a group of companies of S&K Technologies, Inc. that is owned by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.

Caterpillar on San Xavier Tech Park, Tohono O'odham Nation

Caterpillar sales and rentals on the industrial park of the San Xavier District of the Tohono O'odham Nation near Tucson are often used for mining. Caterpillar's downtown Tucson office says it plans to become a mining center. In Palestine, Caterpillar bulldozers, paid for by U.S. taxpayer dollars, are used by Israel to bulldoze Palestinian homes.

The Inter-Tribal Commission of Arizona describes the Tohono O'odham Nation's Tech Park. 

"Within its land the Nation has established an Industrial Park that is located near Tucson. Tenants of the Industrial Park include Caterpillar, the maker of heavy equipment; the Desert Diamond Casino, an enterprise of the Nation; and, an-23 acre foreign trade zone."

Empire-Cat, selling Caterpillar parts and services, is located at the Hi:kdan Business Park, of the San Xavier Development Authority. Caterpillar is also constructing a mining center in downtown Tucson.

Caterpillar in Gaza

The Center for Constitutional Rights describes Caterpillar in Israel.

"Since 1967, Caterpillar, Inc. has supplied the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) with D9 bulldozers to demolish Palestinian homes in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, leaving thousands of families homeless."

"The bulldozers are provided to the Israeli government at the expense of U.S. taxpayers."

"Corrie v. Caterpillar was a federal lawsuit filed against Illinois-based Caterpillar, Inc. on behalf of the parents of Rachel Corrie and four Palestinian families whose relatives were killed or injured when Caterpillar bulldozers demolished their homes. Corrie, a 23-year old American human rights defender, was crushed to death by a Caterpillar D9 bulldozer in 2003 as she attempted to defend a Palestinian family’s home from being demolished by the Israeli military while the family was inside."

"On September 17, 2007, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the lawsuit, ruling that the court did not have jurisdiction to decide the case because Caterpillar's bulldozers were ultimately paid for by the United States Government. 



Raytheon Dine' Facility

Navajo President Buu Nugren voiced support for the Raytheon Dine' Facility, located on the Navajo Nation in November, after the war crimes and genocide were ongoing. Raytheon was giving the president a plaque.

Diné urged President Nygren to support a permanent ceasefire of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, reports journalist Marley Shebala, Dine' and Zuni Pueblo, in Navajo Times.

President Nygren said in December that he would release a statement of support for a ceasefire, but has not done this as of now, in late May.

The K’é Info Shop representatives informed Nygren, “Every year, Western governments like the U.S., Canada, and Britain write blank checks to fund Israel’s crimes against Palestinian people. The weapons being used to perpetrate war crimes against Palestinians are manufactured using billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars."

"The Raytheon Diné facility is complicit in the manufacturing of weapons used to murder Palestinians."

Read the article at Navajo Times:

Raytheon said, "Raytheon Diné stores and generates parts for 12 missile programs such as the Tomahawk cruise missile, Javelin weapon system, and Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile."

Israeli Spy Towers: Tool of the Crime-Infested U.S. Border Patrol


(Above) U.S. Border Patrol agents view the Tohono O'odham Nation with images captured by the spy towers built by Elbit Systems of Israel.

The Tohono O'odham Nation government approved the integrated fixed towers over the objections of traditional O'odham. The spy tower construction disturbed O'odham ceremonial and burial places.

The towers now allow the crime-infested U.S. Border Patrol to stalk vulnerable O'odham. The Confederated Salish and Kootenai's tribal enterprise, International Towers, constructed the spy towers on the western portion of the Tohono O'odham Nation, in partnership with Israel's Elbit Systems.

The Gu-Vo District, in the western most district of the Tohono O'odham Nation, opposed the spy towers.

The Gu-Vo District said in a statement, "The Gu-Vo District opposes these proposed tower sites to protect cultural sites on the holy mountain now called the Ajo Mountain Range. The mountain holds human remains of our people and also places of our cultural practices (medicine bundles) home and home of the ceremonial deer and bighorn sheep and mountain tortoises that are protected under the Endangered Species Act."

"The United States government military forces, the border patrol, have not been forthcoming with impact information, such as health effects and have deliberately misinformed the people regarding the immediate environmental impacts such as the roads they will build on the mountain and installation of electrical power lines to the sites as well as that these proposed tower sites will have a 25-year or longer impact on the mountain, the animal and plant life and the O'odham lives."

"The Gu-Vo District communities landscape have already been greatly impacted by numerous unauthorized roads and destruction of our mountains and hills of great significance to the O'odham way of life."

"Our future generations will face more restriction to live on our original lands as our rights as original Indigenous peoples continue to deteriorate."

"These U.S. proposed towers also are not on the border but in our communities and on the border of the Tohono O'odham Nation reiterating discrimination and deliberate attack on the O'odham," Gu-Vo District said.

While the US attempted to conceal the contract, the US border contract was celebrated in Israel.

Elbit Systems is responsible for surveillance and weaponized drones resulting in the torture and deaths of Palestinians, and is protested around the world.

The War Contractors: Profiting from Genocide

Companies Profiting from the Gaza Genocide, by American Friends Service Committee, Quakers


Caterpillar

"For decades, Caterpillar has been supplying Israel with the D9 armored bulldozer, which the Israeli military routinely uses to demolish Palestinian homes and civilian infrastructure in the occupied West Bank and to enforce the blockade of the Gaza Strip.

"Armored D9 bulldozers have been crucial for Israel's ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, accompanying combat troops and paving their way by clearing roads and demolishing buildings."


Elbit Systems

"Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer, Elbit Systems is one of the primary suppliers of weapons and surveillance systems to the Israeli military, including Skylark and Hermes military UAV drones, which form the majority of Israel’s fleet of large drones and have been used extensively in Gaza."

"Elbit-made MPR 500 multi-purpose bombs are being used by Israel in its attacks on the Gaza Strip. Designed for use in "densely populated urban warfare," these bombs contain 26,000 controlled fragments for "high kill probability."


General Dynamics

"The world's sixth largest weapons manufacturer, General Dynamics, supplies Israel with artillery ammunition and bombs for attack jets used in Israel’s assault on Gaza.

"The company developed the F-16 fighter jet, although it has been manufactured by Lockheed Martin since 1993.

"General Dynamics is the only company in the U.S. that makes the metal bodies for the MK-80 bomb series, one of the primary aerial munitions Israel has used to bomb Gaza.
"

Rafael Advanced Defense Systems: Raytheon Missiles Partners with Israel's Rafael

Elbit drone and Rafael spike guided missile responsible for killing seven World Central Kitchen Aid Workers

"A large Israeli state-owned weapons manufacturer, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems makes missiles, drones, and other weapons systems for the Israeli military.

"The Israeli military has used Rafael Spike Guided Missiles extensively to target, from the air and ground, people inside buildings in the Gaza Strip. The Spike missile family includes many configurations, including ground missiles for use by infantry soldiers and air-to-ground missiles that can be mounted on aircraft and drones.

"On April 1, a Hermes 450 drone, made by Elbit Systems (see above) attacked three vehicles of the humanitarian organization World Central Kitchen near Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. The attack resulted in the killing of seven aid workers who were managing food shipments.

"They were from Palestine, Australia, Poland, the U.K., and a dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada. The Hermes 450 can carry four air-to-ground Spike missiles, and the damage from this attack is consistent with Spike missiles."

Raytheon Missiles (now RTX)

"The world's second largest weapons manufacturer and largest producer of guided missiles, RTX supplies the Israeli Air Force with guided air-to-surface missiles for its F-16 fighter jets, as well as cluster bombs and bunker busters, which have consistently been used against Gaza's civilian population and infrastructure.

"RTX subsidiary Pratt & Whitney manufactures engines for F-15 and F-16 fighter jets.

"As part of a joint venture with Israeli state-owned weapons manufacturer Rafael, RTX makes interceptors for Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system, which have been part of the U.S.’s recent weapons shipments to Israel."

The list continues:



While the University of Arizona in Tucson sent in police who beat students, and shot  them with rubber bullets and tear gas twice, the university failed to reveal it is profiting from genocide in Palestine. Raytheon Missiles is on the University of Arizona Tech Park in Tucson, and develops weapons with students.


Copyright Censored News

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