On Wednesday (22nd November), lobbying firm Gotham Government Relations broke ties with Stuart Seldowitz, a former White House security advisor who served under President Obama, over a viral video where he made comments on Israel’s war on Hamas. In the video, the former diplomat was seen arguing with a Muslim food vendor in New York City, justifying the Israeli retaliation to the brutal October 7 attacks carried out by Hamas.
Stuart Seldowitz engaged in this heated discussion with this non-English-speaking Muslim food vendor in the Upper East Side area of New York City. He accused the food vendor of supporting Hamas and also called him a terrorist. He referred to the Egyptian intelligence agency Mukhabarat while talking to this food vendor, who has purportedly migrated to the USA from a Middle Eastern country. The food vendor claimed in this video that he has US citizenship.
After the videos were released on social media, Gotham Government Relations, the firm where Seldowitz worked, dropped all affiliation with him, calling the video “vile, racist, and beneath the dignity of the standards we practice at our firm.” pic.twitter.com/iUL2C1gNiu
— VICE News (@VICENews) November 21, 2023
Clicking a photograph of this vendor, Stuart Seldowitz asked him if he knew Mukhabarat and that the agency wanted his picture. He also said that the Mukhabarat will get the vendor’s parents in Egypt. He repeatedly lamented the food vendor for his poor knowledge of English. When asked to leave the place, Stuart Seldowitz claimed that he was standing in a free country.
Stuart Seldowitz called out the vendor for supporting the terrorist organisation Hamas. He also called the vendor a terrorist and said that he would put a poster in front of the shop so that people knew he was a Hamas-sympathiser. Adding to this, he said that killing over 4,000 children in Palestine was not enough and more needs to be done.
A lobbying group has severed connections with Stuart Seldowitz, a former adviser to ex-President Barack Obama after videos where he made Islamophobic remarks and issued threats to a New York City food cart employee surfaced online.
— AHMED | أحمد (@ASE) November 21, 2023
The footage, shared on Twitter by a Columbia… pic.twitter.com/jyAYhxZgU5
Stuart Seldowitz then alluded to the Islamic scriptures, including the Quran, and allegedly made comments about Prophet Muhammad and his wife’s age. He also ridiculed the vendor for following the Prophet Muhammad.
As of November 2022, he assumed the role of foreign affairs chair at Gotham Government Relations. But the organisation distanced itself from the ex-diplomat after the video went viral. Gotham Government Relations said in its tweet, “Gotham Government Relations has ended all affiliation with Stuart Seldowitz, an individual who hasn’t contributed to our work in years. The video of his actions is vile, racist, and beneath the dignity of the standards we practice at our firm.”
According to reports, Stuart Seldowitz played significant roles within the U.S. government, including serving as the acting director for the National Security Council South Asia Directorate during the Obama administration. He also held the position of deputy director/senior political officer in the State Department’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs from 1999 to 2003.
