With much controversy around the Israeli Palestinian war, Stuart Seldowitz (Obama’s ex-adviser) decided to publicly harass a halal man, expressing his own controversies. “If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, it wasn’t enough,” Seldowitz confidently proclaimed in a video posted throughout social media platforms. A smile never left Seldowitz’s face as he happily harassed the 24 year old at the food cart. Much of the things he said to the innocent man aren’t appropriate to be mentioned in our high school newspaper. 

Consequence to his actions, Seldowitz was arrested November 22 for a fourth-degree hate crime/stalking and one second degree aggravated harassment. There were two separate recordings of interaction between Seldowitz and the young man. Seldowitz pleaded not guilty to these allegations and was released without bail.

In an interview with the Daily Beast, Seldowits claimed that the vendor instigated the interaction by first coming forward by claiming his allegiance with Hamas. In addition to his defense, he also told City and State that he regretted the whole thing and said some things that he shouldn’t have. 

With tensions growing throughout the world because of the ongoing war in Gaza, there has been a spike of antisemitic incidents. Seldowitz is just one of them that happened to get publicized. If you’re interested in getting more information on the Israeli Palestinian war, go read Zelda Fishman’s articles!