Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr owes Israel a debt of gratitude for taking out the terrorists responsible for his father’s assassination in Lebanon four decades ago, but don’t expect the progressive former NBA star to say thank you, an Israeli columnist said.
Kerr’s father, Malcolm Kerr, was gunned down in 1984 while serving as the president of American University in Beirut by two members of an Islamic jihadist group that is believed to have had ties to Hezbollah.
Over the past months, two senior Hezbollah figures — Ibrahim Aqil and Fuad Shukr — were killed after Israel bombed Lebanon and its capital Beirut in response to the Iran-backed terror group’s rocket attacks on the Jewish state.
Ze’ev Avrahami, columnist for the Hebrew-language news site Ynet, said that Aqil and Shukr were members of a Hezbollah-affiliated jihadist group during the Lebanese civil war that raged from 1975 until 1990.
“Israel cut off the heads of the snake Aqil and Shukr, closing a 40-year-old chapter for the Kerr family,” Avrahami wrote Monday
“But don’t expect a thank you. It’s not in his progressive lexicon.”
Aqil has also been implicated in the planning of the 1983 Marine barracks bombing that killed 241 American troops in Beirut.
Steve Kerr, who was born in Beirut, was 18 years old and a freshman basketball star at the University of Arizona when he found out that his dad was killed.
He has not commented publicly on the Israeli military’s bombardments in Lebanon, which also eliminated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah last week.
Avrahami noted that while Kerr has been vocal about his support for gun control as well as his backing of Black Lives Matter, he had little to say about the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel, which claimed the lives of some 1,400 people.
When Hamas terrorists committed “the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust,” Kerr “wasn’t as compelled to respond,” Avrahami wrote..
Avrahami pointed out that Kerr has instead lamented that “so many innocent people are being killed” in Gaza.
The columnist branded Kerr and another NBA coaching legend, San Antonio Spurs boss Gregg Popovich, who has also been outspoken about his progressive views, as “self-righteous” for “choosing to keep quiet” about Hamas’ brutality.
The Post has sought comment from Kerr.
