The former National Security Council chief under the Obama administration, Stuart Seldowitz, defended himself after he was filmed allegedly harassing a halal cart vendor by spewing Islamophobic remarks.
Seldowitz later confirmed in an email that it was he who was in the video recording that was taken by a vendor from inside a food cart on Manhattan's Upper East Side. There were multiple videos that seemed to have been taken on different days.
Stuart Seldowitz Spews Islamophobic Remarks
In the recordings, the former official mocks Islam, taunts the vendor about his citizenship status, accuses him of supporting Hamas, and references the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. He said, "You support killing little children." The vendor then replies with "You kill children, not me."
In response, Seldowitz said that even if they killed 4,000 Palestinian children, it would not be enough. In a statement on Tuesday, the New York City Police Department said that a commanding officer was aware of the videos and that local precinct personnel were monitoring the situation, as per CNN.
The recordings come as the United States is experiencing an unprecedented rise in reported anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias incidents. The situation started after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel that killed thousands of people.
There has also been an increase in reports of antisemitic incidents across the nation. Last month, FBI Director Christopher Wray said that the threat was reaching "historic levels" and the Anti-Defamation League reported a 388% increase in reported incidents in the weeks after the initial Hamas attack.
In one of the videos posted that showed Seldowitz harassing the halal cart vendor, the former official said that they would put big signs in the area saying that the man "believes in Hamas." In a separate video, the former official asks the vendor whether or not he was familiar with Egypt's General Intelligence Service, otherwise known as Mukhabarat.
He claimed that the Mukhabarat would get the vendor's parents and seems to have threatened the latter's father with violence. Seldowitz later said that if he could do the entire exchange with the vendor, he would remove the religious aspect, according to the New York Post.
Expressing His Apologies
Seldowitz also said that he does not believe himself to be an Islamophobic individual and argued that he has previously spoken up for equal treatment of Muslims on numerous occasions with numerous people.
However, the former official said that he regretted what happened and expressed his apologies for what he had done. He noted that in the heat of the moment, he said things that he said he probably should not have uttered at all.
In one of the videos, Seldowitz told the halal cart vendor that his lack of English fluency showed that he was "ignorant." He told him to learn the language, saying that it would help when he is deported back to Egypt and gets interviewed by the Mukhabarat.
Seldowitz is known for having a distinguished career with the State Department and also served on the National Security Council's South Asia Directorate. He also served as foreign affairs chair at New York lobbying firm Gotham Government Relations, said Aljazeera.
