New York Police arrested a former official in the administration of former US President Barack Obama, on charges of committing a “hate crime,” after he appeared in a video clip in which he made shocking statements about the children of Gaza and Islam, according to the American CBS network.
Video clips of Stuart Seldowitz (64 years old) have spread on social media platforms, harassing an Egyptian vendor, who works on a street food cart in New York, and making anti-Islamic comments.
In a clip that was widely circulated on social platforms, Seldowitz appeared uttering offensive phrases.
For his part, the seller, Muhammad Hussein (24 years old), said that Seldowitz was not a customer, but he came to ask him where he came from, and when he answered Egypt, he continued: “The man started telling me, ‘You support Hamas,’” before he started filming the video.
CBS repeatedly tried to contact Seldowitz, who claimed to other media outlets that Hussein said he “supports what Hamas is doing,” much to his dismay.
Seldowitz, a former State Department employee and national security official, appeared in a series of videos harassing the seller, berating him with anti-Islamic comments and the Prophet Muhammad.
Seldowitz returned to the same store over several days, each time refusing to leave.
In one of the clips, Seldowitz appears saying: “We killed 4,000 children and that is not enough,” apparently referring to the number of children killed in the Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip.
In another video, the former American official appears threatening the seller, who appears to have an Egyptian accent, to report him to Egyptian intelligence.
The seller is heard in the videos asking Seldowitz to go and saying he will call the police.
But Seldowitz replies: “Tell me why I should go? “I am standing here.. I am an American.. It is a free country.” He mocks the seller because he does not speak English fluently, and accuses him of working in the United States without a permit or visa.
On Tuesday, Seldowitz said in a telephone interview, according to the American New York Times, that he had not watched the video clips, and that he asked the seller if he was Egyptian.
The former American official explained that “as the conversation progressed, the seller expressed his support for Hamas,” although this did not appear in any of the videos.
He added: “At that stage, I felt somewhat annoyed and said to him things that I might regret,” adding: “I do regret it… Instead of focusing on him and what he said, I expanded into insulting his religion and so on.”
When asked why he kept returning to the vendor, Seldowitz said he “wanted to ask if the man was still a supporter of Hamas,” adding, “I was upset by the fact that he was selling food in a neighborhood in New York.”
He continued: “I know many Muslims, Arabs and others, and they know me well and know that I am not biased against them.”
