Stuart Seldowitz's rant feels like everyday German-Twitter

Now, if you're a Muslim or someone who's perceived to be a Muslim on German Twitter, this vile encounter will feel creepily familiar.

By now you’re probably aware of former US State Department official Stuart Seldowitz's viral Islamophobic and racist rant. In a series of videos posted on the internet, Seldowitz can be seen hurling demeaning and nasty abuse at a Halal food cart vendor. In the aftermath, the lobbying firm he was associated with has cut ties with him and has instead offered legal support to the victim. Stuart Seldowitz's abuse is already being investigated by the NYPD as a hate crime. The former Barack Obama aide has since apologised.

Here's some of what he said:

Seldowitz threatened the vendor that he would send his photo and information to his friends in the Immigration Department and later to his connections in the Egyptian intelligence agencies.

"The mukhbarat in Egypt will get your parents," he threatens. "Does your father like his fingernails? They will take them out one by one."

Accusing the food vendor of being pro-Hamas, Seldowitz says "If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, it wasn’t enough."

Now, if you're a Muslim or someone who's perceived to be a Muslim on German Twitter, this vile encounter will feel creepily familiar. This is because it's now a public knowledge that the social media space on Twitter is dominated by the right-wing and far-right trolls. Even more so since Musk took over and turned it into "X". Sadly, it is not just the right-wing and far-right trolls. Many with politically centrist views and many of those claiming to be progressives and from the left-wing also engage in this practice. They feel particularly emboldened in the wake of the 7th October terrorist attack in Israel by Hamas. You'd see some of the most vile and anti-Muslim racist structures being reproduced. And when called out, they conveniently pretend to be fighting anti-Semitism. As if that somehow made their racism justified and legitimate. Publicists Ruben Gerczikow and Monty Ott in their guest article for the German-language Jewish paper Jüdische Allgemeine also called out the right-wing “Zionists” who appear to show agenda-driven solidarity with Israel.

There is one difference between the German Twitter and the Stuart Seldowitz incidence: the latter is being pursued by the NYPD as a hate crime whereas the hatred on German Twitter goes without any consequences. The truth is, the racist and anti-Semitic structures are so similar, that the fight against anti-Semitism and racism goes hand in hand. It is ironically embarrassing when a wildly racist person pretends to fight anti-Semitism with racism.