A former White House advisor allegedly threatened a street food vendor in New York City during a disagreement referencing the Israel-Hamas conflict, according to video footage of the incident.
The man identified in the video is Stuart Seldowitz, who has worked in state and federal government for 30 years, serving under five different presidents, both Democrat and Republican.
In the early 2000s, he worked in the U.S. State Department’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs. During the Obama administration, he served as the acting director for South Asia at the National Security Council.
Seldowitz appears in the series of videos to be engaged in a heated, mostly one-sided argument with a street food vendor on the Upper East Side. The footage — taken over the course of several encounters, judging by Seldowitz’s changing attire — was taken by the unidentified street vendor.
“Did you rape your daughter like Mohammad did?” the former senior White House official and current lobbyist asked the unidentified vendor in one video. At that point, the vendor said he did not speak English, seemingly in an effort to end the discussion. Seldowitz responded, “You don’t speak English? Alright, that just shows how ignorant you are. Because Mohammad was a rapist.”
Seldowitz went on to explain that Mohammad “raped Aisha,” referring to the Islamic prophet’s youngest wife.
Seldowitz also claimed to be reporting the vendor to the Egyptian Intelligence Service, called the Mukhabarat, so that the could torture the vendor’s parents, presumably in Egypt.
“The Mukhabarat in Egypt will get your parents. Does your father like his fingernails? They’ll take them out one by one.”
In another clip, apparently filmed on a different day, Seldowitz called the vendor a terrorist and said, “If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, it wasn’t enough.”
Reached by City & State on Tuesday night, Seldowitz seemingly admitted to being the person in the videos.
“I did have an argument with a food vendor,” Seldowitz told City & State. “It is quite possible that it’s me. I mean, I’ve not seen the video, but I believe it’s probably me.”
In response to the video, lobbyist firm Gotham Government Relations, which had recently named Seldowitz its Foreign Affairs Chair, said it had “ended all affiliation with Stuart Seldowitz. The video of his actions is vile, racist, and beneath the dignity of the standards we practice at our firm.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul took to social media to condemn Seldowitz’s tirade, stating, “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.”
Seldowitz explained that his behavior in the videos stemmed from the vendor expressing support for Hamas, the terrorists who carried out an attack that killed approximately 1,200 Israelis and catalyzed the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
“I went to the food cart expecting to buy a soda and I had an understanding that most of the food cart guys in New York are Egyptian,” he said, according to City & State. “So I said to him, ‘This is a tough time to be an Egyptian in New York’. And he said ‘why?’ And I said, because of what happened on October 7, with Hamas. And he said, ‘well, I approve of Hamas’ or ‘I like Hamas’ or something like that.”
Still, Seldowitz was apologetic about taking his adverse reaction to the vendor’s alleged refusal to condemn Hamas’ terrorism too far.
“I regret the whole thing happened and I’m sorry,” he continued. “But you know, in the heat of the moment, I said things that probably I shouldn’t have said.”
“If I had to do it all over again, I would not have raised the religious aspect,” he added. “I don’t think I’m an Islamophobic guy. I’ve spoken up for equal treatment of Muslims on numerous occasions with numerous different people.”
