A former high-ranking official in the Obama administration has been caught on video allegedly racially abusing a Muslim food vendor in New York.
The video was posted online and quickly ignited a firestorm among Democrats who quickly identified its subject as Stuart Seldowitz, a former member of Barack Obama’s White House national security council (NSC) who also worked on Israel-Palestine policy for the State Department for several years.
In the video, Mr Seldowitz is allegedly seen and heard making racist comments to the vendor, who tries to get him to leave him alone without further abuse, reported The Daily Beast.
The incidents appear to occur multiple times, with Mr Seldowitz returning to the food stand on several occasions in multiple outfits seeking to pick a fight with the unidentified man.
“If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, you know what, it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough,” he told the man in one video, while making a derogatory comment about the Prophet Muhammad in another.
Confronted by The Daily Beast about the videos, Mr Seldowitz admitted that it was indeed him seen making the remarks.
“The bottom line is, yes, it’s me,” he told the news outlet.
An official with the State Department denounced “racist language of any form” when the agency was contacted for comment on Mr Seldowitz’s tenure at the agency.
Mr Seldowitz would go on late Tuesday evening to defend his reputation in an interview with City and State New York. He also accused the unnamed Muslim man of expressing support for Hamas in some form, though it still wasn’t clear why he had interrogated the man for his view on the conflict in the first place.
“I regret the whole thing happened and I'm sorry,” he told the news outlet. “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 continued. “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.”
Anti-Muslim and antisemitic incidents have been on the rise in the US since the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October and the retaliatory bombings on the enclave.
Former White House and State Department official Stuart Seldowitz admitted to being the man caught on video delivering a tirade of racist abuse to a New York food vendor— (Twitter: Itslaylas)
A six-year-old Palestinian-American boy was murdered by his mother’s landlord in an alleged racist attack in Illinois.
Broad accusations of support for “terrorism” levelled at Muslim Americans are nothing new. Such Islamophobic racism was encouraged by the American right-wing (as well as some on the left) for two decades after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and has found new purchase with the renewed violence in Israel and the Gaza Strip this year.
President Joe Biden has sought to repudiate Islamophobia in the same breath as condemnations of antisemitism over the past month as his government treads a fine line on the issue of support for Israel amid its conflict in Gaza.
The president’s Muslim American supporters in the Democratic Party remain unimpressed and disgusted with his administration’s response to the bombing campaign, however, according to community leaders who have spoken out to reporters.
Overall, Mr Biden’s support and job performance rating is plummeting as just 51 per cent of voters in his own party give the president positive marks for his handling of the situation.
