NEW YORK - A former high-ranking US government official has been arrested after being captured on video calling a halal food vendor in New York City a “terrorist” and saying the death of 4,000 Palestinian children in Gaza “wasn’t enough”.
Stuart Seldowitz, 64, who previously served as deputy director of the US State Department’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs, was arrested on Wednesday on charges of aggravated harassment, hate crime stalking, stalking causing fear, and stalking at a place of employment, New York police said in a statement.
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.
