Stuart Seldowitz, a former advisor in the Obama regime, was arrested by the NYPD on Wednesday after an altercation at a halal food cart in Manhattan, New York.
New York City Councilwoman Julie Menin confirmed the development, stating, “UPDATE in Street Vendor Case in Our Community: The Suspect is in NYPD custody and has been arrested. Thank you to NYPD 19th Precinct for their swift investigation. Hate and harassment have no place in our community.”
The altercation, which included derogatory remarks about the vendor’s Egyptian background and Muslim faith, was recorded on video and resulted in Seldowitz being fired from Gotham Government Relations, a well-known lobbying firm, as reported by ABC7 NY.
Stuart Seldowitz served as the deputy director/senior political officer in the Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs during the early 2000s. He also acted as the director for the National Security Council’s South Asia Directorate under the Obama administration.
Seldowitz can be seen in disturbing footage, which went viral on social media, repeatedly harassing 24-year-old Mohamed Hussein, a street vendor, over a period of two weeks.
Seldowitz can be seen in one video accusing the vendor of supporting Hamas and criticizing him for not speaking English. In another video, he suggests that not enough Palestinian children were killed during the Israel-Hamas conflict. The videos show Seldowitz engaging in a shocking and aggressive line of questioning, including making threats to send the vendor’s picture to immigration officials and Egypt’s security services for possible deportation and torture.
From Fox News:
“Did you rape your daughter like Muhammad did?” Seldowitz asks the vendor in the first video, referring to the Prophet Muhammad, the most revered figure in Islam. The video shows the vendor repeatedly saying he doesn’t speak English and asking Seldowitz to leave.
Seldowitz then appears to take a photo of the vendor and threatens to send it to his “friends in Immigration” and the Mukhabarat, Egypt’s intelligence agency, before suggesting the organization would torture the vendor’s family by removing their fingernails. It’s unclear if the vendor is Egyptian.
He then calls the vendor “ignorant” for presumably not being able to speak English.
The second video shows Seldowitz harassing the vendor on a separate occasion by asking if he has a permit to sell food on the street and if he has a visa.
Another video posted by a different X user shows Seldowitz again asking if the vendor is in the country legally, before a bystander jumps in to defend the vendor.
After the videos surfaced, Seldowitz told the Daily Beast that they only show one side of the whole story. He admitted to starting up the initial conversation with the vendor but claimed the latter instigated the escalation by expressing support for Hamas.
“I regret the whole thing happened, and I’m sorry,” he later told City & State. “But you know, in the heat of the moment, I said things that probably I shouldn’t have said.”
“If I had to do it all over again, I would not have raised the religious aspect,” he said. “I don’t think I’m an Islamophobic guy. … I’ve spoken up for equal treatment of Muslims on numerous occasions with numerous different people.”
Watch the videos:
this man is continuing to berate and harass the halal cart vendor. He ends the video with “if we killed 4,000 palestinian kids? It wasn’t enough”. pic.twitter.com/yhu4HSvIEZ
— Layla 🪬 (@itslaylas) November 21, 2023
his harassment of the Halal Cart vendor at 83rd and 2nd ave has been ongoing for two weeks.
— Layla 🪬 (@itslaylas) November 21, 2023
NYPD has been called multiple times, local precinct stated that “there is nothing they can do because it is free speech”. pic.twitter.com/6LYL40TTFK
The NYPD has opened a hate crime investigation into the incident, specifically looking into Seldowitz’s harassment of street vendor Mohammed Hussein. A representative from the NYPD confirmed to Rolling Stone that the department’s Hate Crimes Task Force is actively looking into the matter.
NYPD’s hate crime task force is now investigating former Obama adviser Stuart Seldowitz, after videos showed him saying killing 4K Palestinian children “wasn’t enough” and calling a food truck vendor a “terrorist.” I’ll have an updated story later today https://t.co/bGky0wDM3n
— 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐚 𝐤𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐧𝐚𝐧 (@ManishaKrishnan) November 22, 2023
This development comes after the Biden administration’s announcement of a strategy to address Islamophobia nationwide amid multiple concerning incidents of anti-Semitism on college campuses and in various urban areas across the United States.
