Customer boycotts of Pizza Hut are occurring as a result of reports that the restaurant business fed troops to Israeli military facilities for free.
Pizza Hut Israel reshared an Instagram story on January 19th, shared by user @alex_shults, featuring two grin-filled troops carrying stacks of Pizza Hut pizza boxes. The post suggested that Pizza Hut had given the soldiers complimentary lunches. The Instagram story is no longer accessible after it ran for 24 hours.
Supporters of Palestinian rights boycotted the chain’s products after Palestinian news organizations, such as the Quds News Network, started resharing screenshots of the posts on Instagram and X, the website that was once known as Twitter.
Recently, boycotts of other companies seen as supporting Israel have also been supported by advocacy groups. One such example is Starbucks, which faced protests and boycotts from union members following the company’s lawsuit over social media remarks supporting the Palestinian people that were made on a union account.
Pizza Hut has not acknowledged the boycotts in public or attested to the fact that the soldiers received the pizzas at no cost.
Pizza Hut Israel has seen boycotts before
Pizza Hut faced criticism in May 2017 after its Israeli branch posted an advertisement online. The advertisement seemed to make fun of hunger-striking Palestinian inmates. An altered photo of a prisoner consuming Pizza Hut pizza in his cell was used in the advertisement.
In reaction to the advertisement, social media users and advocacy groups, such as the BDS movement, started using the hashtag #boycott_pizzahut.
Later, Pizza Hut removed the advertisement, expressed regret, and allegedly dismissed the PR company that made it.
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