A former adviser to former US President Barack Obama was arrested after a video surfaced showing him making Islamophobic remarks at a halal food vendor in New York City.
Stuart Seldowitz, 64, a former deputy director of the US State Department’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs, faces charges including aggravated harassment, hate crime stalking, and stalking at a place of employment, according to the New York police as cited by Aljazeera.
“A 24-year-old male victim stated to police that an individual approached him at his work place multiple times and made anti-Islamic statements multiple times on different dates causing the victim to feel afraid and annoyed,” police said.
Video went viral this month of multiple arguments over Israel’s war on Gaza between Seldowitz and an Egyptian man working in a halal cart in Manhattan.
“If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, it wasn’t enough,” Seldowitz says in one exchange captured on video and posted on the social media platform X.
The vendor is seen telling Seldowitz to “go, go, go, go” and “I won’t hear it”. Seldowitz then responds: “But you’re a terrorist. You support terrorism.”
In other exchanges, Seldowitz is heard casting slurs against Prophet Muhammad, and calling the vendor “ignorant” for his lack of fluency in English.
Additionally, he threatened to involve Egypt’s intelligence agency against the vendor.
Seldowitz claimed the video did not depict the full context and cited his upset over the man’s alleged sympathies for Hamas, although the vendor did not mention the group ruling Gaza in any of the recordings.