you assertion in the first part falls apart if you look at the multiple videos of Seldowitz's baseless assumptions. Just because he claims the vendor said something doesn't mean it's correct.
And if he’s so off the rails that he’s going to go on an absurd tirade against any vendor who “isn’t a white American” as you claim, then there would be plenty of footage of him doing this to nearly every street vendor in town, because
most of them aren’t white. The “crazy white guy / innocent Muslim” trope doesn’t stand up to basic reasoning here. There’s a reason the guy decided to go off on this particular vendor, and kept coming back to harass him.
Again, not defending Seldowitz’s behavior at all. But his version of events actually explains the scenario in a believable way, while the vendor’s non-denial doesn’t. And at this point if the vendor admitted that he’d said he approved of Hamas’s tactics, he knows he’d lose his victim status and get picketed by Jewish groups, so he just dodges the question instead. It all adds up.
Is it proof? No, of course not, as I already said. But it’s more probable than the innocent victim tack you’re taking, which doesn’t really add up at all. And just because Seldowitz is a piece of shit, that doesn’t automatically mean that everything he says about the situation is a lie. Again, this binary victim/oppressor thing you try to apply to every situation appears to limit your thinking.
In other words, in every single video that we have Seldowitz is showing absolutely abhorrent behavior.
…which I never disputed, and which is completely irrelevant to what the vendor may or may not have said.
I repeat, we have no evidence at all to support that the vendor has problematic beliefs or that he expressed any of them in the first place.
No direct evidence, as I already said, yet you parrot this back to me as if it’s new or insightful. The indirect evidence is Seldowitz‘s account and the vendor’s refusal to directly deny that account. The vendor could very easily say “No, I never said that, I completely disagree with Hamas’s tactics”, but he’s repeatedly dodged that question instead. Why do you think that is?
If you are willing to condemn a person without any evidence, because the words of a deeply racist man could be used against Hamas-defenders as well, then I don't know what to say to you.
I’m not condemning anyone. This isn’t a court of law. But I’m saying if you look at the whole picture and the evidence that does exist, it’s more likely than not that the vendor did in fact say he supported Hamas’s tactics, and that’s what triggered Seldowitz to lose his shit and repeatedly harass this specific vendor for weeks on end. If he just hates anyone who isn’t white, he’d be losing his shit on far more people far more often, don’t you think?
Like I said, we can walk and chew gum at the same time. Seldowitz is clearly a piece of shit. That doesn’t mean that the vendor isn’t one too.
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