Friday, December 23, 2016

Malcolm Kerr and the Camp David accords: A correction of the record

Professor Edmond Burke III sent me this correction about my post (below) about Malcolm Kerr's stance on the Camp David accords. My response was based on the recollection by Steve Kerr of his father's joyous reaction to Camp David accords.  Professor Burke wrote: "Recent postings about Malcolm Kerr and Camp David have prompted the resurfacing of this memory which may be of interest:
Following the announcement of the Camp David Accords Malcolm Kerr wrote a letter to the LA Times in which he stated (more  or less) that anything that was not agreed to by the PLO was not worth the paper it was written on. He was the only senior figure in the U.S. Middle East field to take this position. At the time Kerr was Professor of Middle East Politics at UCLA. Soon thereafter the garage of his home was fire-bombed by the Jewish Armed Resistance (an armed-struggle off-shoot of Meir Kahane’s group). The assailants were never caught. In the early 1980s the same group attacked the office of  Congressman Darrell Issa."