Israel killed Steve Kerr’s father’s killers, but don’t expect a thank you from progressive coach: columnist

Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr owes Israel a debt of gratitude for taking out the terrorists responsible for killing his father in Lebanon four decades ago, but don’t expect the progressive former NBA star to say thank you, he said. an Israeli columnist.

Kerr’s father, Malcolm Kerr, was assassinated in 1984 while serving as president of the American University in Beirut by two members of an Islamic jihadist group believed to have ties to Hezbollah.

In recent 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 terrorist group’s rocket attacks on the Jewish state.

Ze’ev Avrahami, a columnist for the Hebrew-language news site Ynet, said Aqil and Shukr were members of a jihadist group linked to Hezbollah during the Lebanese civil war that raged from 1975 to 1990.

“Israel cut off the heads of the serpent Akil and Shukr, closing a 40-year chapter for the Kerr family,” Avrahami wrote on Monday.

“But don’t expect a thank you. It’s not in his progressive lexicon.”

Aqil was also implicated in the planning of the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks 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 his father had been killed.

He has not publicly commented on the Israeli military’s bombing of Lebanon, which also took out Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah last week.

Avraham noted that while Kerr has been vocal about his support for gun control, as well as his support for Black Lives Matter, he had little to say about the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel, which claimed the lives of about 1,400 people.

When Hamas terrorists carried out “the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust,” Kerr “wasn’t so compelled to respond,” Avrahami wrote.

Avrahami noted that Kerr has instead complained that “so many innocent people are being killed” in Gaza.

The columnist called Kerr and another NBA coaching legend, San Antonio Spurs boss Gregg Popovich, who has also been outspoken about his progressive views, as “right” for “choosing silence” about the brutality of Hamas.

The Post has reached out to Kerr for comment.