Killing 4,000 Palestinian children 'wasn't enough', ex-Obama adviser tells vendor in verbal attack
A former adviser to Barack Obama said that killing 4,000 Palestinian children “wasn’t enough” during a racist and islamophobic rant to a food vendor.
In videos shared on social media, Stuart Seldowitz can be heard asking someone off-camera whether they raped their “daughter like Muhammad did”.
“Muhammad, your prophet ... He was a rapist,” he said.
Mr Seldowitz was acting director for the National Security Council South Asia Directorate under President Obama, a senior political officer and was deputy director in the US State Department’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs from 1999 to 2003.
Most recently he served as foreign affairs chair for Gotham Government Relations, which cut ties with him following the release of the videos.
In the viral clips, Mr Seldowitz appeared to be speaking to a man working inside a food van in New York City.
In one video, Mr Seldowitz can be heard saying he is going to “put up big signs here that say ‘This guy believes in Hamas’”.
The vendor then told Mr Seldowitz he was an American citizen, to which he asked how he became a citizen and called him a “terrorist”.
“You support killing little children. You’re a terrible person,” Mr Seldowitz said
The vendor replied: “You kill children, not me.”
Mr Seldowitz said: “If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, you know what, it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough.”
In another clip, Mr Seldowitz referred to his “friends in immigration” and that “the Mukhabarat wants your picture” in an apparent reference to an Egyptian intelligence agency.
“The Mukhabarat in Egypt will get your parents. Does your father like his fingernails? They’ll take them out one by one,” he said.
The vendor repeatedly asked Mr Seldowitz to leave, telling him that he did not speak English.
“Tell me why I should go? I’m standing here. I’m an American. It’s a free country. It’s not like Egypt,” Mr Seldowitz replied.
When the man repeated that he did not speak English, Mr Seldowitz called him “ignorant” before asking if he spoke Arabic, “the language of the Koran”.
“The holy Koran that some people use as a toilet. What do you think of that, people who used the Koran as a toilet? Does it bother you?” he laughed.
Verbal attack on innocent vendor
In the second video, Mr Seldowitz said he is going to “put up big signs here that say ‘this guy believes in Hamas’”.
The vendor then told Mr Seldowitz he was an American citizen, to which he asked how he became a citizen and called him a “terrorist”.
“You support killing little children. You’re a terrible person,” Mr Seldowitz said
The vendor replied: “You kill children, not me.”
Mr Seldowitz said: “If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, you know what, it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough.”
Mr Seldowitz has since apologised for the incident.
“I regret the whole thing happened and I’m sorry... In the heat of the moment, I said things that probably I shouldn’t have said,” he said on Tuesday evening.
“If I had to do it all over again, I would not have raised the religious aspect,” Mr Seldowitz added, insisting that he was not bigoted against Muslims.
“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.”
