A former advisor from the Obama regime, Stuart Seldowitz, was arrested by the NYPD on Wednesday following a heated incident at a halal food cart in Manhattan, New York.
New York City Councilwoman Julie Menin confirmed: “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.”
UPDATE in Street Vendor Case in Our Community: The Suspect is in NYPD custody and has been arrested. Thank you to @NYPD19Pct for their swift investigation. Hate and harassment have no place in our community.
— Julie Menin (@JulieMenin) November 22, 2023
The confrontation, which involved derogatory remarks about the vendor’s Egyptian heritage and Islamic faith, was captured on video and has led to Seldowitz’s dismissal from Gotham Government Relations, a prominent lobbying firm, according to ABC7 NY.
Stuart Seldowitz worked in the early 2000s as the deputy director/senior political officer in the Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs and was an acting director for the National Security Council’s South Asia Directorate under the Obama administration.
The unsettling footage, which was shared across various social media platforms, shows Seldowitz repeatedly harassing the street vendor, 24-year-old Mohamed Hussein, over a span of two weeks.
In one video, he is seen accusing the vendor of supporting Hamas and berating him for not speaking English. In another, he claims that not enough Palestinian children were killed amid the Israel-Hamas conflict.
The videos depict a shocking and aggressive line of questioning by Seldowitz, including threats to send the vendor’s picture to Immigration officials and Egypt’s security services for potential deportation and torture.
The harassment reached a tipping point when a construction worker interceded to prevent further confrontations. The viral videos prompted Gotham Government Relations, where Seldowitz was a consultant, to sever ties, condemning the actions as vile and racist.
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.
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— Layla (@itslaylas) November 21, 2023
The NYPD has launched a hate crime investigation into the matter, focusing on Seldowitz’s harassment of the food cart vendor, Mohammed Hussein. A representative from the NYPD confirmed to Rolling Stone that the department’s Hate Crimes Task Force is actively investigating the incident.
“We want to sue him for harassment and hate speech,” Hussein’s boss and cart owner, Islam Moustafa, told the New York Post, adding, “I consider this hate-speech, not freedom of speech.”
“Mohamed’s a little scared, he’s a little worried — especially after finding out this guy used to work for the government,” Moustafa said. “How do you ask a little 24-year-old if he ever raped his daughter? He’s an ex-government official, he worked for the Obama administration, he’s not a nobody.”
“How does an ex-government official speak about religion and hatred with that much hatred? A normal person wouldn’t do that, but a guy with power and ranking shouldn’t be talking like that to a 24-year-old who keeps begging him to walk away,” he added.
“Then I learned it wasn’t just one instance, it was three different instances, from an ex-government official who works as an advisor to companies and large corporations,” Moustafa told The Post.
This development follows the Biden regime’s announcement of a strategy to combat Islamophobia nationwide amidst numerous troubling instances of anti-Semitism on college campuses and in various urban areas across the United States.
