DoorDash and numerous other businesses have followed Uber Eats in cutting ties with a Toronto restaurant over a post saying that Zionists aren’t welcome.
On July 2, Foodbenders posted on its Instagram that it is open for “non-racist shoppers” and added hashtags that read “#freepalestine” and “#zionistsnotwelcome.” On July 6, Uber Eats said in a letter to Foodbenders its agreement with the restaurant has been “terminated effective immediately.”
DoorDash followed suit on July 7, telling multiple accounts on Twitter that it has ended delivery services for Foodbenders.
“We have removed Foodbenders from our platform for their failure to follow the community guidelines and our partner code of conduct, as we do not tolerate malicious, discriminatory or hateful behavior,” DoorDash tweeted.
Hi, we have removed Foodbenders from our platform for their failure to follow the community guidelines and our partner code of conduct, as we do not tolerate malicious, discriminatory or hateful behavior.
— DoorDash (@DoorDash) July 8, 2020
B’nai Brith Canada praised DoorDash in a tweet, writing: “Thank you for your principled stance @DoorDash! #EradicateHate.”
Thank you for your principled stance @DoorDash! #EradicateHate https://t.co/FDk9Cv9ydo
— B'nai Brith Canada (@bnaibrithcanada) July 8, 2020
The Stop Anti-Semitism.org watchdog similarly tweeted, “Thank you @DoorDash
for caring about your Jewish customers and saying NO TO HATE.”
Following in @ubereats steps, food delivery service DoorDash cuts ties with #antisemitic eatery 'FoodBenders'!
Thank you @DoorDash for caring about your Jewish customers and saying NO TO HATE. pic.twitter.com/DREdtFh88l
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) July 8, 2020
Other delivery platforms that have followed suit in cutting ties with Foodbenders include Ritual Technologies and the coffee vendor Blue Heaven Café.
“We are witnessing here corporate citizenship at its very best,” Simon Wiesenthal Center Executive Director Rabbi Meyer H. May said in a statement. “These companies are sending a powerful message that hate will not stand in our community and are outstanding models for other companies to emulate.”
Israellycool blogger David Lange caught a screenshot of a since-deleted July 7 Instagram post from Foodbenders stating that it isn’t anti-Semitic to criticize “the Israeli Zionist occupation state” or the “zionist journalists in Toronto and now Israel have written slander fake news pieces about me to present me as racist.”
“Once again, Jews are very welcome to shop with us, zionists may also shop if they can do so without insisting they’re (sic) right to a homeland justifies killing other people,” the post read. “When a zionist tells us Palestinians should be murdered, something that happens all day long, we ask them to leave because THAT is hate speech.”