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Disturbing video shows ex-Obama White House adviser harassing NYC halal cart vendor, passing Islamophobic remarks
Stuart Seldowitz was seen calling the Upper East Side vendor a “terrorist” and harassing him for not speaking English
A former White House security adviser has been caught on camera making Islamophobic remarks at a halal cart vendor in New York City on various occasions. The man, identified by internet sleuths as Stuart Seldowitz, reportedly served under President Barack Obama.
Stuart was seen calling the Upper East Side vendor a “terrorist” and harassing him for not speaking English. He was also heard suggesting that the Muslim prophet Mohammed was a rapist. Stuart said more Palestinian children should be killed amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.
‘You support killing young children’
“If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, it wasn’t enough,” Stuart said in a video posted to X. “It wasn’t enough.” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell claimed that Israeli airstrikes have killed over 5,000 Palestinian children in Gaza following the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
According to the person who posted Stuart’s video, Stuart had been harassing the street vendor for two weeks. In different clips posted to the same thread, he appears to be wearing different clothes.
Stuart reportedly worked as a deputy director/senior political officer in the US State Department’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs in the early 2000s. He is seen in the video threatening that he would send the vendor’s photo to his “friends in Immigration” and Egypt’s security services who he said would torture him “when they deport you back to Egypt.”
Stuart is seen taking a photo of the vendor, and laughing and asking him, “Did you rape your daughter like Mohammed did?” The vendor told him he does not speak English, to which Stuart replied saying the vendor was “ignorant,” because of which he works in a food cart.
A different video shows Stuart holding up an Israel pin up to the window of the halal cart and asking the vendor if he has a permit and visa. The vendor asked him to leave, repeatedly. "You support killing young children,” Stuart told the vendor, referring to the Hamas attack. “You kill children, not me. Go,” the vendor replied.
“I didn’t kill children,” Seldowitz replied. “… If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, it wasn’t enough.”
A third video shows Stuart asking the vendor if he was in the country legally. A construction worker eventually intervened to stop the harassment.
Stuart confirmed to The Daily Beast that it was him in the video. “The bottom line is, yes it’s me,” he said. He also reportedly said that the videos do not show his side of the story, and that the vendor initially expressed his support for Hamas.
The NYPD said that the situation is being monitored. Lobbying firm Gotham Government Relations, where Stuart was employed, said all affiliation between the two had ended after the videos surfaced. “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.
‘Islamophobia is hate’
Mayor Eric Adams and Kathy Hochul also condemned Stuart. “Islamophobia is hate. Plain and simple,” Eric wrote on X. “This vile, disrespectful rhetoric has no home in our city. We reject it — and we're glad to see we're not alone.”
Kathy wrote, “This is hateful, disgusting and unacceptable. Vile rhetoric like this has no place in New York, and we condemn it in the strongest of terms.”
