Martin Indyk
<youtube size="tiny" align="right" caption="Martin Indyk interview">-YAyQd_tLeM</youtube> Martin S. Indyk is a veteran lobbyist for Israel, the founding director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the current vice president and director of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution.[1] He is also a former director of Brookings' Saban Center for Middle East Policy. Indyk reportedly told the National Journal's Christopher Madison in 1988 that he was working hard to shake the image of being "an arm of AIPAC
Despite his well known affiliation with the Israel Lobby[2] and his Australian nationality, Bill Clinton appointed him as the first foreign-born US Ambassador to Israel in 1995. The issuance of his US nationality had been expedited for his previous appointment by Clinton in 1993 as Middle East adviser on the National Security Council. [3] Once appointed to public office Indyk ceased being a 'lobbyist', but joined the growing ranks of the Israel-First fifth column in the US. He frequently appears in the mainstream media as a "Middle-East expert".
Career
Born in the UK to a Jewish family and raised in Australia, Indyk was reportedly granted US nationality in an expedited manner to serve for the Clinton Administration in the early 1990s.[4] Prior to beginning his career in the US, Indyk completed a masters degree at Hebrew University in Jerusalem in International Relations and a PhD in Australia on the role of the United States in resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict.[5] Indyk has stated that his interest in protecting Israel's security was enhanced by being a student in Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, at which time he also volunteered in a Kibbutz:
- That was a kind of a defining moment for me in terms of my search for identity. I sat up at night listening on my radio to the BBC reports of Henry Kissinger flying in to get the cease-fire and from that moment on I became absolutely obsessed about the idea that I too should play some role in trying to make Israel safe, because that would make me safe.[5]
Indyk cofounded the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in February 1985 with the wife of AIPAC Chairman Emeritus Lawrence Weinberg and former president of the Jewish Federation, Barbi Weinberg. At this time Indyk was AIPAC's deputy director of research, serving under Steven Rosen[6] and Weinberg, who was an AIPAC director herself, became the Washington Institute's president.[2]
AIPAC
While working as a visiting fellow at Columbia University in the US after going there from Australia in 1983, Indyk was recruited by AIPAC:
- Unlike the six Washington Institute for Near East Policy associates named above who moved into Bush administration positions, Australian-born Executive Director Indyk had never worked for the U.S. government. A biography issued by his own institute describes him as a "professorial lecturer in the Department of Middle East Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies." His official biography does not mention his other position in the U.S., as AIPAC assistant director of research.[2]
Affiliations
- AIPAC - Former Research Director [7]
- Brookings Institution - Vice President and Director of Foreign Policy[8]
- Saban Center for Middle East Policy - Director[9]
- Washington Institute for Near East Policy - Former Founding Executive Director[10]
Books
- Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East (2009), New York, Simon & Schuster
Related Articles
- Chemi Shalev, Could this war produce a Sunni-Israeli alliance?, Haaretz, August 8, 2006.
- PIWP Database compendium of articles about Martin Indyk [1]
Notes
- ↑ Martin S. Indyk, Brookings Institution (accessed 8 September 2010).
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Grace Halsell, Clinton's Indyk Appointment One of Many From Pro-Israel Think Tank, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 1993,(accessed 8 September 2010).
- ↑ Martin S. Indyk, Simon & Schuster (accessed 8 September 2010).
- ↑ Helena Cobban, "Martin Indyk's 'conversion'", 'Just World News' with Helena Cobban, 27 February 2010
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Leadel Interview, "Martin Indyk", Leadel Website, accessed on 10 September 2010
- ↑ Jeffrey Goldberg, "Real Insiders", New Yorker, 4 July 2005
- ↑ Grace Halsell, Clinton's Indyk Appointment One of Many From Pro-Israel Think Tank, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 1993,(accessed 8 September 2010).
- ↑ Brookings Institute, "Martin Indyk", Brookings Institute Website, accessed on 10 September 2010
- ↑ Council on Foreign Relations, "Martin Indyk", CFR Website, accessed on 10 September 2010
- ↑ Charlie Rose, "Martin Indyk", Charlie Rose Website, accessed on 10 September 2010
