image source, Getty Images
- Author, Mike Wendling
- Role, BBC news
Police have arrested a former US State Department aide on charges of making an anti-Muslim slur while dealing with a food vendor in New York City.
Stuart Seldowitz, a former U.S. State Department aide, admitted during several media interviews that he was the person who appeared in the widely circulated video calling a halal food truck vendor a “terrorist.”
Seldowitz said the seller provoked him after he expressed his support for the Islamic resistance movement Hamas.
The street vendor, Muhammad Hussein, as his name was mentioned in press reports, denied making comments supporting Hamas.
A spokesperson for the New York Police Department confirmed to the BBC that Seldowitz was arrested on Wednesday, without providing further details on the specifics of the charge. The BBC attempted to contact Seldowitz for comment on the matter.
Seldowitz appeared in videos circulating inside the halal food truck at various times throughout the day, and in one of them he said: “If we had killed 4,000 Palestinian children, you would know that this would not have been enough.”
A still image from one of the videos showing Seldowitz attacking a food truck vendor
Seldowitz appeared in another video clip, which received more than 40 million views
Meanwhile, a passerby approached Seldowitz, asking him to stop harassing the seller.
Seldowitz has a long career in the US State Department, during which he worked in the Office of Israeli-Palestinian Affairs and was director of the National Security Council in the White House under former US President Barack Obama.
The Daily Beast reported Tuesday that Seldowitz admitted to being the person in the videos and quoted in the headline: “Conclusion: Yes, It’s Him.”
Seldowitz said in the interview that “there should be comments towards supporters of terrorism and the killing of civilians.”
In another interview with City & State, Seldowitz reportedly said, “I’m sorry that this happened, but in the heat of the moment I said things that I probably shouldn’t have said.”
Seldowitz previously worked as head of external affairs at a lobbying firm called Gotham Government Relations, which released a statement Tuesday saying Seldowitz’s actions are “racist and fall outside the firm’s standards of dignity.”
Although a press release issued by the company in November 2022 announced that Seldowitz was head of the company’s external affairs, David Schwartz, founder and president of Gotham, stated: Seldowitz has not performed any work for his company in approximately five years. , and that his title was only honorific.
In a BBC interview he added that he felt angry and “unable to express” what Seldowitz did. He added: “This is not the person I know. He was very intelligent and was honored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and won three awards.”
“When I saw the video, I knew within seconds that we had to take action and without hesitation I decided to cut all ties with him,” Schwartz continued.
Many New Yorkers expressed their support for food vendor Mohammed Hussein on social media, while New York Mayor Eric Adams posted a tweet on Platform X stating: “Islamophobia is hate, plain and simple.”
Adams added: “This vile and disrespectful speech has no place among us. We reject it and are happy to see that we are not the only ones who reject it.”
While the seller, Muhammad Hussein, told the New York Post he wanted to sue Seldowitz.