Free Elizabeth Tsurkov: Trolling the Iraqi Prime Minister in Washington

Trump New York Trial Diary, Day 3

Good Morning:

Epic trolling of the Iraqi Prime Minister in Washington by the family of hostage Elizabeth Tsurkov.

I have very few true religious experiences. I’m not a believer, and my capacity for spirituality is, let’s just say, limited.

But I have to say that when I count the relatively few moments of spiritual ecstasy in my life, the opportunity—in the days before Passover, no less—to assist a family confronting an actual head of government and demanding of him that he, “Let my sister go!” will rank up there.

Nobody with even the faintest Jewish consciousness—however secularized—could be unmoved by such a moment.

No, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani of Iraq is not a Pharaoh, and Emma Tsurkov—in all of her frantic, creative energy to free her sister, Elizabeth, from the clutches of the Iraqi terrorist group, Kataib Hezbollah, is not Moses.

But Emma’s campaign of trolling the Iraqi prime minister during his visit to Washington over the last few days—which included yelling with a bull horn in front of the White House that he free Elizabeth while he was meeting with President Biden; shouting down his motorcade; taking out rooms in the Willard Hotel (where his delegation is staying) and accosting members of the prime minister’s entourage in the hotel’s halls; and yes, borrowing #LordLaser last night to project on the walls of the Willard—has definite Prince of Egypt vibes.

#LordLaser informs me that it was a deep privilege for him to takes the briefest of breaks from targeting Russian diplomatic facilities and doing other Ukraine advocacy to participate in last night’s trolling.

Elizabeth Tsurkov, for those who missed my earlier dog shirt on the subject, is the Princeton graduate student, journalist, and Middle East scholarship who was doing dissertation research in Baghdad when she was kidnapped a year ago by Kataib Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy force that kills American soldiers and is also part of Sudani’s governing coalition.

Here is the post I wrote about her last month when Emma spoke in front of the Iraqi embassy:

And here is the Lawfare Podcast episode she and I recorded that same day:

Elizabeth Tsurkov and I have never met properly, though we were Twitter buddies and occasional texting correspondents back when I was not banned from Twitter and she was not being held hostage by a terrorist group.

She is a remarkable woman in a great many ways—which you will start to get a feel for if you listen to the podcast episode. (She is also the only person in the world to have ever called me “based”—which is actually how I learned the word—and that kind of shit buys a lot of loyalty from me).

Emma’s rage at Sudani and his presence in Washington—and her desire to wage a campaign of guerilla operations to make his stay here as uncomfortable as possible—may require a little bit of context. Sudani’s government is heavily dependent on American aid. It also includes the faction that is both attacking American forces and holding her sister. And yet the prime minister is here in Washington, hat in hand, asking for more military aid and receiving the treatment due a visiting foreign leader.

Yuck.

So this week, along with her other two siblings, David and Avital—who came to Washington from Israel for the occasion—she began a campaign of highlighting the contradictions.

Emma sent me this video last night of their #SpecialMilitaryOperation against the Willard Hotel, along with some of the other epic trolls the three of them have engaged in:

The campaign is paying dividends. President Biden reportedly raised Elizabeth’s case with Sudani in their private meeting, and the prime minister has apparently heard about Elizabeth in a great many other meetings he has had this week with official Washington.

As #LordLaser remarked last night on the way home after we dropped the three unkidnapped Tsurkov siblings at their hotel: life (or in his case, inanimate objecthood) only provides one so many opportunities to troll an actual visiting head of government in a fashion lifted out of Exodus. You don’t pass these things up when they arise.

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Actually, I didn’t ask. So this headline falls into a weird subcategory of the dumb question headline: the “dumb question preceded by a false statement” headline. These are rare.

But since, you ask, YES! It’s very fucking rude to push your way ahead of the people who are sitting in front of you on the plane and trying to get off too! Is your blood redder than theirs? Is your appointment that you’re trying to get to more oh-so-important than their appointments that they are trying to get to?

Okay, sure, sometimes you have a genuinely urgent reason or need to get off the plane, one that you’re confident trumps the needs of the others. You are going to miss your connection. Grandma has died and the flight delay has made you late to the funeral. Shit happens.

But you know what you do then? You ask!

You say, “Excuse me, is it okay if I push ahead? I’m going to miss my connection and my grandmother died and I don’t want to miss the funeral.”

Any other stupid questions preceded by false statements, Washington Post?

(Hat tip: the estimable Antii Ruokonen)

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Today’s #BeastOfTheDay, nominated by the estimable R.J. Lyman, is this estimable fellow from Austin, Texas:

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Trump Trial Diary, April 19, 2024

Speaking of Passover, Justice Juan Merchan has “heard [the] moaning” of the Jewish people (Exodus 2:24) and he has remembered God’s “covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob”—or maybe he just read Wednesday’s dog shirt—and he has made a non-trivial gesture to “let my people go” to Seder.