The former head of President Barack Obama’s National Security Council has denied he is an “Islamophobic man” after being seen harassing a halal car salesman on the Upper East Side and asking him if he raped his daughter.
Stuart Seldowitz, 64, admitted “maybe me” in a viral video shared to social media, offering a half-hearted apology.
“If I had to do it over again, I wouldn’t bring up the religious aspect,” he told City & State on Tuesday night.
“I don’t think I’m an Islamophobic man,” he added. “I have spoken out for equal treatment of Muslims on many occasions with many different people.”
Seldowitz added that he regretted “everything that happened, and I’m sorry.
“But you know, in the heat of the moment, I say things I probably shouldn’t.”
The former White House official is accused of harassing a street vendor at the corner of East 83rd Street and Second Avenue for nearly two weeks, according to a Columbia graduate student who posted the video — shot from the vendor’s perspective — to X.
Seldowitz wears different outfits in the clip, which looks like it was filmed at a different time of day.
Stuart Seldowitz, 64, denied he was Islamophobic despite admitting “maybe I” in a video of a man harassing a halal trolley seller. Stuart Seldowitz / Facebook
Inside The first video was posted to social mediaSeldowitz — who worked as deputy director/senior political officer at the US State Department’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs in the early 2000s — threatened to send the vendor’s photos to his “friends at Immigration” and the Egyptian security services, who he said would torture him. “when they sent you back to Egypt.”
“Did you rape your daughter like Mohammed did?” he asked the seller after snapping a photo of him and laughing, the footage shows.
The street vendor tells Seldowitz that he doesn’t speak English — as if to force him to leave — but instead, the former political aide scolds the man, telling him he’s “ignorant” and that’s why he works in a food cart.
A video posted on social media shows a man later identified as Seldowitz harassing street vendors at the corner of East 83rd Street and Second Avenue for nearly two weeks.X / @itslaylas Seldowitz wears different clothes in the clip, which appears to have been filmed at different times in a day.X / @itslaylas
In another clip, Seldowitz holds an Israeli pin over the window of a kosher car and asks a vendor if he has a permit and visa as the vendor repeatedly asks him to leave.
“You support killing little children,” Seldowitz told him, claiming that the vendor supported Hamas.
“You killed the children, not me. Go,” the seller replied, waving him off, according to the video.
“I don’t kill children,” replied Seldowitz, adding: “If we kill 4,000 Palestinian children, that’s not enough.”
Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 5,000 Palestinian children in Gaza since the current Hamas-Israeli war began on Oct. 7. according to UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.
A third clip shows the former acting director for the National Security Council’s South Asia Directorate under the Obama administration asking a vendor if he was in the country legally, before a construction worker stepped in to stop the ongoing harassment.
The lobbying firm Gotham Government Relations, where Seldowitz was a consultant, announced that it was terminating all ties with him.gothamgr
Seldowitz later admitted, “I had an argument with the food vendor. It was quite impossible that it was me.
“I mean I didn’t see the video, but I believe it might have been me.”
The NYPD said local precinct commanding officers were aware of the video and that police from the precinct were “monitoring the situation.”
Meanwhile, lobbying firm Gotham Government Relations, where Seldowitz was a consultant, announced it was cutting ties with him after a video of his shocking behavior went viral.
“The video of his actions is vile, racist, and beneath the dignity of the standards we practice at our firm,” the company said in a statement.
David Schwartz, the firm’s founder and president, also said he would represent the grocer pro bono if he wanted to sue Seldowitz.
“I’m really angry about this video.”
Seldowitz served as head of the National Security Council under President Barack Obama.ZUMAPRESS.com
Seldowitz was also condemned by Mayor Eric Adams, Governor Kathy Hochul and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
“Islamophobia is hatred. Plain and simple,” tweeted Adams. “This vile and disrespectful rhetoric has no home in our city. We rejected it — and we’re glad to see we’re not alone.”
“This is hateful, disgusting and unacceptable,” Hochul told X. “This kind of despicable rhetoric has no place in New York, and we condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”
James also said it was “disgusting, hateful, and New York will not tolerate it.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
