Martin Indyk

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<youtube size="tiny" align="right" caption="Martin Indyk interview">-YAyQd_tLeM</youtube> Martin S. Indyk is a former AIPAC staffer,[1] 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.[2] Indyk is also director of Brookings' Saban Center for Middle East Policy.

Despite his well known affiliation with the Israel Lobby[1] and his Australian nationality, Bill Clinton appointed Indyk as the first foreign-born US Ambassador to Israel in 1995.[3] 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.[4] Due to his employment with AIPAC and his relationships with prominent pro-Israel lobbying institutions and lobbyists, Indyk reportedly told the National Journal's Christopher Madison early in his career that he was working hard to shake the image of being "an arm of AIPAC."[1] Indyk frequently appears in the mainstream media as a "Middle-East expert."

Education

Prior to beginning his career in the US, Indyk completed a masters degree in Jerusalem on 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 Yom Kippur War (at which time he also volunteered in a Kibbutz).[5]

Career

Indyk cofounded the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in 1985 with the wife of AIPAC Chairman 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] 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.[7] Indyk joined Clinton's administration as director for Middle East affairs on the National Security Council and later represented the United States as ambassador to Israel twice (1995-97 and 2000-01).[8]

Martin Indyk, an Australian close to Israeli policy circles, had in the 1980s, and early 1990s served as the founding director of the Washington Institute for Near Easy Policy, the think thank of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a major lobbying organization. With that background, Indyk became influential in the Clinton administration and successfully advocated "dual containment" of both Iraq and Iran. This policy depended on economic boycotts and the deployment of U.S. military might in the Gulf, mainly American overflights of Iraq from Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudia Arabia. Obviously, Israeli security was on Indyk's mind as he pressed this unrealistic idea in Washington.[9]

Indyk is currently vice president and director of Foreign Policy at the [[Brookings Institution] and Director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy.

AIPAC

While working as a visiting fellow at Columbia University in the 1980s, Indyk was recruited by AIPAC -- an association he reportedly downplays:

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.[1]

Multiple Loyalties

As an Australian citizen (who worked and studied in Israel) that later became a US citizen who spent a significant part of his career working for pro-Israel lobbying organizations, much has been written about where Indyk's loyalties lie. Decorated US veteran and former department of defense staffer Colonel W. Patrick Lang has written that Indyk personally asked Lang to register under the Foreign Agent Registration Act for working for a Lebanese businessman and politician. Lang voluntarily accepted the request and writes that it has since been used against him by neoconservatives who take issue with his political commentary:

This registration later became a great convenience to the neocon brethren who would cite it in calling to complain to editors and network executives about me, my views and/or foreign associations. Whenever they sought to use this "tool" they always falsely claimed that I was a representative of a foreign government rather than an individual. This calumny culminated in Indyk's call to me suggesting that I should admit my "foreign agent" status. I was happy to do so. I de-registered myself several years ago when I stopped working for the overseas principal.[10]

Indyk has himself openly admitted in an interview that his academic career was marked by an intense interest in protecting Israel's security which was intensified during his graduate studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem during the Yom Kippur War:

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]

Dual Containment

Iraq War

Affiliations

Books

  • Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East (2009), New York, Simon & Schuster

Related Articles

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 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).
  2. ↑ Martin S. Indyk, Brookings Institution (accessed 8 September 2010).
  3. ↑ Grant F. Smith, "Israel Lobby Initiates Hispanic Strategy", IRmep, 10 April 2006
  4. ↑ Martin S. Indyk, Simon & Schuster (accessed 8 September 2010).
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Leadel Interview, "Martin Indyk", Leadel Website, accessed on 10 September 2010
  6. ↑ Jeffrey Goldberg, "Real Insiders", New Yorker, 4 July 2005
  7. ↑ Helena Cobban, "Martin Indyk's 'conversion'", 'Just World News' with Helena Cobban, 27 February 2010
  8. ↑ Wikipedia, "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Ambassador_to_Israel", Wikipedia, accessed on 13 September 2010
  9. ↑ Juan Cole, Engaging the Muslim World, (Palgrave Macmillan 2009) p. 20
  10. ↑ W. Patrick Lang, "The FARA Law", Sic Semper Tyrannis, 6 March 2009
  11. ↑ 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).
  12. ↑ Brookings Institute, "Martin Indyk", Brookings Institute Website, accessed on 10 September 2010
  13. ↑ Council on Foreign Relations, "Martin Indyk", CFR Website, accessed on 10 September 2010
  14. ↑ Charlie Rose, "Martin Indyk", Charlie Rose Website, accessed on 10 September 2010
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