Obama’s former U.S. State Department official, Stuart Seldowitz, was arrested in New York on Wednesday for hate crime.
Seldowitz was captured on video calling an Egyptian halal street vendor a terrorist and saying that the death of 4,000 Palestinian children “wasn’t enough.”
The charges against him are aggravated harassment, hate crime stalking, stalking causing fear, and stalking at a place of employment, police said in a statement.
“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 added.
The attacks that broke out on October seventh have prompted a surge in both Islamophobia and antisemitism across the globe.
Social media posts showed Seldowitz in a video saying, “If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, you know what? It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough.”
"If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, it wasn't enough…"
In a separate incident, US State Department veteran Stuart Seldowitz continues his racist harassment of a street vendor in New York.pic.twitter.com/GP49aoxFzg
— Lowkey (@Lowkey0nline) November 21, 2023
In the posts, the vendor told Seldowitz more than once to “go, go, go, go” and “I won’t hear it.” Seldowitz then responds, “But you’re a terrorist. You support terrorism.”
When asked about the incident, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said: “The United States unequivocally opposes racist or discriminatory language of any form.”
