Following police arresting two men over the arson of his Caulfield store in what was deemed to not be a hate crime, Burgertory CEO Hash Tayeh has responded to calls (like mine) for him to apologize for having claimed it was a hate crime by “Zionists”:
I find his comments to be dishonest.
While he has been consistent in claiming he received death threats, police were very quick to state there was “nothing to indicate that this incident was related to any religious or political involvement,” while making significant progress in the investigation even as early as November. And if you want to argue it was reasonable he did not trust this to be the case initially, he was publicly implying it was the work of “Zionists” even as recently as a few weeks ago, well after police had all but ruled out any political or religious connection.
As for his rejection of the allegation he is antisemitic, his activity on social media shows otherwise.
And speaking about dishonest, this GoFundMe to help him rebuild his store – which has so far raised close to AUD $64,000 – has done so claiming the arson was a hate crime. As of the time of this post, it is still doing so, despite the arrests – even though it was also dishonest to do so once police had all but ruled out this possibility:
I have no problem with people fundraising to help him rebuild his business, but I have a big problem with people misusing GoFundMe in order to raise the funds based on false information.
Updates
1/2/24 8:10: Yeah, Hash is being real honest when he speaks of his outreach towards the Jewish community:
He's an antisemitic dope and a liar to boot. This was taken two weeks ago 🙄 pic.twitter.com/Be41HgrNDB
— Rettiwt (@Rettiwt613) December 26, 2023
1/2/24 15:10: Avi Yemini has been all over this, and his report contains some further information, including how the mentally-ill young man whose comments were mentioned in Hash’s video (as an example of why he thought Zionists were behind the arson) tried to commit suicide and is on life support :
