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By Thomas Kika
Weekend Staff Writer
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Stuart Seldowitz, one-time political adviser in the Obama administration, was fired from his position at a lobbying firm after being caught on video hurling an Islamophobic rant at a halal cart vendor.
The viral video first began to circulate on X, formerly Twitter, in which a user claimed the man later identified as Seldowitz had been harassing a food cart operator near 83rd and 2nd Avenue in New York City. Among the remarks made in the video shot in Manhattan, Seldowitz asks the operator if he "raped [his] daughter" and calls Islamic prophet Muhammad a "rapist," and suggests that the killing of around 4,000 Palestinian children in Gaza amid the Israel-Hamas conflict "wasn't enough." Confirmation of Seldowitz's identity arrived when his current employer, lobbying firm Gotham Government Relations, announced that they had fully parted ways with him.
"Gotham Government Relations has ended all affiliation with Stuart Seldowitz, an individual who hasn't contributed to our work in years," the company wrote in a post to X, with the same message also being shared atop the organization's official website. "The video of his actions is vile, racist, and beneath the dignity of the standards we practice at our firm."
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According to a recent Siena Research Institute poll, high numbers of New York City residents said they believed Muslim and Jewish communities are experiencing heightened levels of Islamophobia and antisemitism, respectively, in the city since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict on October 7. Of the respondents surveyed, 62 percent felt Muslims faced Islamophobia in the city, with 60 percent saying the level has increased since the conflict began. Conversely, 73 percent said they believed Jewish people were experiencing antisemitism and 75 percent said they believed it had escalated over the same period.
Newsweek attempted to reach Seldowitz via phone and email for comment Tuesday evening, as well as Gotham Government Relations via email.
A longtime career diplomat, Seldowitz, according to Vice, previously worked under former President Barack Obama as acting director for the National Security Council South Asia Directorate. He also served as deputy director and senior political officer in the U.S. State Department's Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs from 1999 to 2003. Prior to Tuesday, he had purportedly been working at Gotham Government Relations as foreign affairs chair.
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Seldowitz's firing came in the wake of the video going viral on X, with millions of views across multiple posts identifying him and his background. The initial video asking for help identifying him has, as of Tuesday evening, garnered over 2.3 million views.
"Meet Stuart Seldowitz, a former advisor to the White House who used to advise Obama on foreign policy," X user Zara Magnusson wrote, in a post with a further 2.1 million views. "He is a three-time winner of the State Department's Superior Honour Award."
"This is New York, and this man is Stuart Seldowitz, An American career diplomat and he was an advisor to Obama White House," Ashok Swain, professor of Peace and Conflict Research at Sweden's Uppsala University, wrote in his own post. "This low Islamophobia has reached!"
Seldowitz has not, as of Tuesday evening, released any statement.
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