Ex-State Department official Stuart Seldowitz arrested for hate crime

New York police on Wednesday arrested a former U.S. State Department official after he was captured on video calling an Egyptian halal street vendor a terrorist and saying the death of 4,000 Palestinian children “wasn’t enough.”
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.
Video went viral earlier this month of multiple arguments over the Israeli-Hamas conflict between Seldowitz, a former State Department employee, and the unidentified man working in a halal cart on a Manhattan sidewalk.
The war that broke out on Oct. 7 has prompted a surge in antisemitism and Islamophobia in the United States and fueled frequent street protests in support of both Israel and Palestinians in Gaza.
Social media posts showed Seldowitz saying, “If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, you know what? It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough.”