Tense moment McDonald’s worker chants ‘Free Palestine’ at drive-thru customers as they were complaining about their order
McDonald's has suspended a worker at its Cannon Hill drive-thru in Brisbane after she was filmed chanting "Free Palestine" at two Jewish customers who had queried a missing item from their order. The customers, Asaf and Matan, said the woman began questioning where they were from before repeating the phrase when told one of them was Israeli, leaving them "shaken" by the exchange. The incident has drawn attention amid wider concern about rising antisemitism in Australia, with McDonald's stressing it has a zero-tolerance policy on such conduct.
The confrontation began on Tuesday night when the pair pulled up to the drive-thru window to ask about a missing Quarter Pounder, prompting the worker to ask where they were from before invoking Palestine. Asaf also made unproven claims that the worker called them "baby killers" and accused them of lying about the missing item. McDonald's Australia confirmed the employee has been stood down pending an internal investigation and apologised to the customers. The Queensland Jewish Board of Deputies said the case was its 100th antisemitism report of 2026, and Asaf has spoken to Queensland Police, who referred him to the Australian Human Rights Commission.
- McDonald's worker chanted "Free Palestine" at Jewish drive-thru customers in Brisbane
- Employee suspended pending investigation; McDonald's apologised
- Case marks Queensland Jewish Board's 100th antisemitism report of 2026
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McDonald's has suspended a worker at one of its Brisbane drive-thrus after a video showed her chanting "Free Palestine" at two customers, Asaf and Matan, who had asked about a missing item in their order. Both men are Jewish, and one is Israeli; they say the exchange left them shaken, and the incident is now being examined internally by the company.
The episode has landed amid growing concern in Australia about antisemitism, with Jewish community groups tracking a rise in reported incidents this year. McDonald's Australia has apologised to the customers and said it does not tolerate this kind of behaviour from staff, while the matter has also been raised with police and a human rights body.
The story touches on several sensitive threads at once: workplace conduct, free expression, and the wider Israel-Gaza conflict, which has heightened tensions and scrutiny around how such views are expressed in everyday public settings, including customer service jobs.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Those sympathetic to the worker would argue she was reacting, in a moment of raw emotion, to a conflict that has caused immense loss of life and that many feel a moral duty to speak out about, and that political conviction expressed in the workplace should not automatically be treated as a sackable offence. They would note that free expression, even when clumsily or unprofessionally delivered under the pressure of an irate customer interaction, deserves some latitude, and that rushing to suspend and publicly condemn an employee before an investigation concludes risks punishing conscience rather than conduct.
The case against
Those sympathetic to the customers would argue that whatever the employee's views on the conflict, singling out patrons by asking their nationality and then directing a political chant at them during an unrelated complaint about a missing item crossed from political expression into personal targeting based on identity, which left two people feeling frightened and unwelcome simply for who they are. They would say a business has every right, and indeed a duty, to ensure staff treat all customers with equal courtesy regardless of national or religious background, and that a swift, zero-tolerance response is a reasonable and proportionate way to reassure the public and Jewish customers in particular amid a documented rise in antisemitic incidents.