Manhattan street food vender says he was 'shocked' to learn harasser is former US official

By Islam Dogru

NEW YORK (AA) - The co-owner of a halal food cart in New York City whose employee was racially abused and threatened by a former Obama administration official said Wednesday he was “shocked” to learn of the harasser’s background.

Islam Moustafa said Stuart Seldowitz, who worked in the US Department of State’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs from 1999 to 2003 and later at the National Security Council during the Obama administration, approached and verbally harassed the 24-year-old street cart vendor in three separate encounters.

The incidents come amid an increase in cases of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bias since the Palestinian group Hamas launched a cross-border attack on Israel on Oct. 7, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Asked if they faced any other Islamophobic incidents since Oct. 7, Moustafa responded: “I would say this is a single instance. I'm just more shocked that he was a government official.”

“He stooped that low to talk to a 24-year-old with that language on a few different occasions. This is what shocked me. But I still consider it a single occasion. We don't have any issues with the community here,” he told Anadolu.

He said one of his customers called the police, but they didn’t show up. The food cart worker later called the police himself, but the response he received was “this is normal, and he should do the same to the guy when he shows up again.”

“I feel bad for him that he has that much hate inside him,” Moustafa said.

Speaking through a translator, Mohamed Hussein, who was harassed by Seldowitz, said he feels tired and “cannot smile to customers” like he used to after the incidents.

Hussein, who has been in the US for five years and working for the food vendor in Manhattan for the past year, said it was the first time he has faced such harassment.

Richard Porterfield, a New Yorker who visited the food vendor in a show of support, said: “I came to this food cart expecting to see a big Palestinian flag or something specific to the Israeli-Gaza conflict that might set this man off, but there's nothing here.”

“It's just a food cart. The man just happens to be from the Middle East, and It's awful.”

It was very upsetting to learn not only that he was just a fellow New Yorker, but that he had this high position in the State Department in the Obama administration.

Seldowitz was captured on videos circulating since Tuesday on social media making threats and Islamophobic comments against the Muslim food vendor.

In one video, he calls the vendor a "terrorist" and said: "If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, you know what? It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough."

In another video, Seldowitz is seen taking a picture of the vendor with his mobile phone while instructing him to "smile for me."

Despite the vendor's limited English, he persists with his harassment, making derogatory comments about Islam’s Prophet Muhammad and asking the vendor offensive questions like: "Did you rape your daughter like Muhammad did?"

The vendor responded, saying he doesn’t speak English, but Seldowitz continued with his attacks.

*Writing by Iclal Turan