NEW YORK—A 24-year-old street food vendor on New York City’s Upper East Side, has become something of an overnight celebrity after facing relentless harassment from a former senior U.S. official on camera.
On Tuesday, shocking videos emerged of Stuart Seldowitz, a national security adviser under President Obama who also served as deputy director of the U.S. State Department’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs from 1999 to 2003, hurling Islamophobic insults at the vendor in three separate clips, apparently taken on different occasions.
Police arrested Seldowitz on Wednesday, New York City Councilwoman Julie Menin said, adding that “Hate and harassment have no place in our community.” Multiple reports also confirmed Seldowitz was taken into police custody.
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Mohammed, who declined to share his last name, was too busy serving a very long line of lunch customers to say much, but told The Daily Beast that there has been an outpouring of support since the video went viral. A throng of reporters—some typing away on laptops at a folding table adjacent to the cart—and several TV news crews were stationed nearby.
In one of the viral videos, Seldowitz was filmed threatening the vendor and his family. “The Mukhabarat in Egypt will get your parents. Does your father like his fingernails? They’ll take them out one by one,” he said in between attempts by the vendor to get him to walk away. “You should learn English, it’ll help you when they deport you back to Egypt and the Mukhabarat wants to interview you.”
In another clip, Seldowitz asks the vendor if he “rapes his daughter,” derides the Quran and the Prophet Mohammed, and repeatedly calls the man a “terrorist.”
“If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, it wasn’t enough,” Seldowitz says in a third video, referring to Israel’s bombardment of Gaza following an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by Hamas.
The owner of the cart, who introduced himself as Yasser, but also declined to share his last name, told The Daily Beast that he first heard about the situation last night when Mohammed sent him the videos of Seldowitz’s abuse. He said he was “shocked” when he saw what had transpired.
“We’ve been here for so many years, never had no problem with nobody,” Yasser said.
He described Mohammed as “very polite,” and couldn’t fathom the former diplomat’s behavior. “We serve the community,” Yasser said. “He’s saying, ‘Mukhabarat,’ ‘CIA,’ ‘Hamas.’ What does this have to do with anything? He is trying to make a living.”
Seldowitz, who formerly served as a deputy director of the United States Department of State’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs, confirmed that he was indeed the man in the videos when reached by The Daily Beast on the day his harassment went viral.
In his phone call with The Daily Beast, Seldowitz claimed the vendor had instigated the incidents by expressing support for Hamas, arguing “there should be some comment back to someone who is endorsing terrorism and the killing of innocent civilians.”
Later on Tuesday, Seldowitz told City & State, that “If I had to do it all over again, I would not have raised the religious aspect,” adding, “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.”
The former Obama adviser was promptly let go from his position as chairman of the prominent lobbying firm Gotham Government Relations in the aftermath of the incident. “The video of his actions is vile, racist, and beneath the dignity of the standards we practice at our firm,” the political firm said in a post to X on Tuesday.
When reached by The Daily Beast, Gotham’s chairman, Arthur Aidala, said the incident took him by “surprise,” adding that “No human being should speak to any other human being that way, no matter how emotional and tragic this period of time is in the world.”
Back on the Upper East Side, a passerby stopped to shake Yasser’s hand and express his support to the vendor. “That guy threatened you with the Mukhabarat, right?” the man said, referring to the video. “Fucking coward.”
