‘4,000 Palestinian Children are Not Enough’: Former Obama Aid Arrested for Hate Crime Stalking

November 23, 2023

Stuart Seldowitz was arrested after saying that 4,000 killed Palestinians were not enough. (Photo: video grab)

Former US State Department official Stuart Seldowitz, 64, was arrested on charges of aggravated harassment, hate crime stalking, stalking causing fear, and stalking at a place of employment.

New York police arrested on Wednesday a former US State Department official after he was captured on video calling an Egyptian street vendor a terrorist and saying the death of 4,000 Palestinian children “wasn’t enough”, Reuters news agency reported.

Stuart Seldowitz, 64, was arrested on charges of 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 workplace multiple times and made anti-Islamic statements multiple times on different dates causing the victim to feel afraid and annoyed,” police said in a statement.

Video went viral earlier this month of multiple arguments over Israel’s war on Gaza between Seldowitz, a former State Department employee, and the unidentified man working in a halal cart on a Manhattan sidewalk.

Social media posts showed Seldowitz saying: “If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, you know what? It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough.”

In the posts, 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.”

Seldowitz told local television news before his detention that the video posted on social media failed to tell the whole story and that he became upset only after the unidentified man said he supported the Hamas attacks on Israel.

Seldowitz worked in the Obama administration as acting director for the National Security Council South Asia Directorate, according to his LinkedIn profile, which is no longer active.

He also reportedly worked at the State Department, an archived telephone directory for the agency shows. He told the New York Times that he had worked for the Department’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs.

Asked about the incident, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said: “The United States unequivocally opposes racist or discriminatory language of any form.”

(MEMO, PC)