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Extraordinary
silence greeted the news of the suspension of Martin Indyk’s
State Department security clearance. The current U.S. Ambassador
to Israel, a U.S. citizen only since 1993, he’s the
first Jew to hold that position. Though the ADL’s Abraham
Foxman made a few predictable noises about possible anti-Semitism
at work, he quickly dropped the subject. This was rather
odd, for the charges against Indyk look rather feeble. He
is accused of "sloppy handling of information."
Apparently, while traveling, Indyk had used unclassified
laptop computers to write up his discussions with foreign
leaders. How classified could his discussions have been?
Interestingly – and
doubtless entirely coincidentally – just a few days before
this public censure, Indyk had delivered a major speech
in Israel calling on Israelis and Palestinians to share
the city of Jerusalem. "There is no other solution,"
he pointed out. "It is not, and cannot be the exclusive
preserve of one religion." Even Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Barak has not gone this far. He insists that Jerusalem
remain undivided and under Israeli control, with only some
Arab neighborhoods within and just outside the city being
ceded to the Palestinians.
Amazingly,
though Martin Indyk’s entire career has been devoted
to the cause of championing Israel’s interests, this
has done him precious little good with Israel’s amen
corner here. He has repeatedly been denounced for insufficient
pro-Israeli ardor. Indyk, the New Republic sneered
a few years ago, is "as indifferent to Israeli sensibilities
as any State Department Arabist." The American Israel
Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Israel’s chief lobbying
organization in the United States, accused him of "faulty
moral equivalence."
Indyk
was born in England, grew up in Australia and lived for
some years in Israel. When he came to the United States
he took a job with AIPAC. In 1985, Indyk created an AIPAC
offshoot, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Though the Institute claims to be "a public educational
foundation dedicated to scholarly research and informed
debate on US interests in the Middle East," very little
debate about U.S. interests takes place there since they
are taken to be the same as Israel’s. Institute members
flood talk shows, op-ed pages and congressional committees
with a steady stream of pro-Israeli views. The board of
advisers includes such reliable advocates of Israel as Martin
Peretz, Edward Luttwak, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Richard Perle,
Eugene Rostow, Max Kampelman, Paul Wolfowitz and Mortimer
Zuckerman. Its staffers regularly trot out articles with
titles like "The Case for Hitting Hard at Saddam."
Indyk’s
successor as executive director, Robert Satloff, is a regular
habitué of the pages of the Wall Street Journal
and the New Republic. His articles are always the
same, elaborations on one argument: the United States has
no business demanding any concessions from Israel. We should
simply stay the hell out of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
U.S. policy toward the "peace process," he wrote
in the New Republic two years ago, should be to "recognize
any agreed outcome of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and
only an agreed outcome of negotiations." Since Israel
is by far the stronger party of the two, this policy amounts
to little more than blanket American endorsement of the
Israeli position.
Having
advised Bill Clinton’s campaign in 1992, Indyk was
appointed to the National Security Council as Middle East
expert. He became a U.S. citizen a few days before Clinton’s
inauguration. At the NSC, Indyk became famous as the inventor
of the "dual containment" strategy, whereby the
United States would block Iran’s and Iraq’s access
to the world – a naive and hubristic policy that unraveled
very quickly. In 1995 Indyk was appointed Ambassador to
Israel, where he became a confidant of the Israeli Labor
Party leaders.
In
October 1997, he came back to Washington to become Assistant
Secretary of State for Near East Affairs. Even before his
Senate confirmation hearings were under way he was under
attack. The Center for Security Policy, run by various Reagan
Administration retreads, denounced his "contemptuous
attitude toward Israel." Senator Joseph Lieberman wrote
to Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms demanding
that Indyk be made to "state for the record his support
for and intent to implement" the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy
Relocation Act, itself Lieberman’s handiwork. Indyk
was also criticized for his lukewarm support for a bill
requiring the State Department to use the term "Jerusalem,
Israel" on the birth certificates of Americans born
in Jerusalem. Currently, the State Department lists only
"Jerusalem," with no mention of Israel.
Indyk
was confirmed. Last year he was attacked again, this time
by the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA). Indyk had
hired Joe Zogby (son of Arab American Institute President
James Zogby) who, it was alleged, had written articles "harshly
attacking Israel." ZOA National President Morton A.
Klein wrote: "Zogby’s harsh attacks on Israel
and US policy in the Mideast for not being sufficiently
pro-Arab, should disqualify him from serving on the staff
of US government officials involved in shaping America’s
Mideast policies." That just about every senior State
Department official involved in "shaping" America’s
Mideast policies is Jewish is, however, seen as perfectly
just and reasonable. Last October, at the request of Barak,
Indyk was reappointed U.S. ambassador to Israel – a cozy
arrangement the United States would not dream of entertaining
with any other country. His humiliation now is further proof,
if any was needed, that when it comes to Israel, nothing
short of grandstanding will do.
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