Friday, December 23, 2016

New York Times and the article about Steve Kerr

The article (with contribution from Anne Barnard) got this so blatantly wrong: "Yasir Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization, expelled from Syria, had its headquarters in Beirut. "  By the time Malcolm Kerr arrived into Beirut, the PLO was expelled from Beirut.  You just had to insert the Palestinians into this, instead of talking a bit about the horrors of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon?  Also, the article does not mention a common theory about the assassination at the time: Malcolm Kerr stood against Phalanges plan to create a branch of the AUB in East Beirut. This had been the plan by Bashir Gemayyel for several years and Kerr resisted that strongly.  The theory goes that the Lebanese Forces thugs (who were the dominant force when Kerr served in Beirut) were the one who killed him.  

PS I met Ann at UCLA a couple of times and liked her very much.
PPS I was not happy to read in this article that Malcolm Kerr was happy about Camp David and Sadat's role.  While Kerr was hated by Zionists and considered an "Arabist" who was sympathetic with the Arabs, his actual writings were in fact too accommodating of the Israeli occupation state.