Aussie-raised envoy ‘pursued peace’
In an exclusive interview with The AJN before visiting Australia to deliver the Gandel Oration in 2007, Indyk recalled his boyhood in Castlecrag.
Australia’s Jewish leadership has joined senior figures including President Joe Biden and former US leaders paying tribute to Dr Martin Indyk, who was raised in Australia and became a key US diplomat shaping relations between Washington and Jerusalem.
Indyk, who died of oesophageal cancer on July 25, 24 days after his 73rd birthday, served under president Bill Clinton in 1995-97 as the first Jewish US ambassador to Israel, and again in 2000-01. He was US special envoy for Middle East peace under president Barack Obama.
Indyk’s mother left Poland and studied in Tel Aviv, before immigrating to New Zealand. His Polish father settled in Sydney and was studying medicine in London where their son was born.
In an exclusive interview with The AJN before visiting Australia to deliver the Gandel Oration in 2007, Indyk recalled his boyhood in Castlecrag, at Sydney Grammar and North Shore Synagogue, playing on its cricket team “and delighting in defeating Moriah College”.
He taught politics at Macquarie University and, during a sabbatical in New York, joined the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Before reluctantly renouncing Australian citizenship, Indyk helped found the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Joining Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, he recalled the Arkansas governor “was looking for some kosher Middle East advice”.
Indyk became a special assistant to the president and won a senior Middle East post in the National Security Council. Appointed ambassador to Israel, he worked with Yitzhak Rabin on the Oslo talks. After Rabin’s assassination, “the whole process began to crater”.
During Clinton’s second term, he became assistant secretary of state for Near East Affairs and, at Ehud Barak’s request, was able to resume as envoy to Israel.
He later established the Saban Centre for Middle East Policy. In 2013-14, he was Obama’s special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, but moribund talks frustrated him.
Not all Jewish figures agreed with his views which criticised Palestinians and Israeli settlers. Communal titan Isi Leibler once said Indyk “has expressed views that many Israelis would consider highly controversial”.
Before October 7, Indyk advised Biden on Israeli-Saudi ties. Indyk blamed “a total systems failure” in Israel for last year’s Hamas attacks.
Zionist Federation of Australia CEO Alon Casutto said Indyk “pursued the noble cause of peace between Israelis and Palestinians”.
Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council executive director Colin Rubenstein described him as “a brilliant scholar, analyst and diplomat … Whether you agreed with him or not, his commitment to Israel and the Jewish people was never in doubt.”
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