While pro-Palestinian activists and supporters of Israel lined opposite sides of South LaSalle Street outside the Northern Trust Building in Chicago on 9 June, James Owens, the outgoing CEO and Chairman of Caterpillar Inc., told a room full of shareholders the company was not responsible for the way Israel uses the bulldozers the company manufactures in the United States.

Owens made his remarks at the end of the annual shareholders meeting, which had been disrupted 14 times by individual protestors who stood up one by one and loudly proclaimed that the Israeli military uses Caterpillar's D9 bulldozer to raze farmland, uproot olive groves and demolish homes, sometimes crushing people inside. As each activist stood, as many as five plain-clothed security personnel descended upon the speaker and physically escorted him or her from the room.