News Release

Martin Indyk, retiring U.S. ambassador to Israel, to become senior fellow at the Brookings Institution

June 15, 2001

Middle East expert Martin S. Indyk will join the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution as a senior fellow, effective September 1, Brookings President Michael H. Armacost announced today. Indyk will bring to Brookings first-hand diplomatic experience from the frontlines of the Middle East conflict, as well as his conceptual mastery of the underlying challenges to U.S. policy in this region.

“The Middle East remains an unsettled region of great consequence to the United States,” said Armacost. “Martin Indyk’s real-world experience and contacts in the area, combined with his academic expertise, will allow Brookings to examine the tough questions facing the region and to suggest workable solutions.”

James B. Steinberg, incoming vice president and director of the Brookings Foreign Policy Studies program, said, “Martin Indyk’s outstanding accomplishments, as a diplomat and scholar, will add an important new dimension to the strong Foreign Policy Studies team at Brookings.”

Indyk’s career has alternated between government service and academic scholarship. This includes two tours as U.S. ambassador to Israel, the first during the Rabin years (1995-97), and the second (2000-present), during efforts to achieve a comprehensive peace and stem the violence of the intifadah. He has also held the positions of assistant secretary for Near East affairs at the State Department (1997-99) and special assistant to President Clinton for Near East and South Asian affairs on the National Security Council (1993-95). In both positions, he was responsible for developing overall Middle East policy.

His academic and think tank affiliations have included the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, where he was an adjunct professor in the Department of Middle East Studies; the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where he was founding executive director (1984-93); the Middle East Institute at Columbia University and the Dayan Center for Middle East Studies at Tel Aviv University, where he was a visiting fellow; and the Department of Politics at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, where he was a professor in Middle East politics.

Indyk, a naturalized American citizen, was born in England and educated in Australia. He received his bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Sydney in 1972 and his Ph.D. in International Relations from the Australian National University in 1977.

Among the honors and awards presented to Indyk are the Distinguished Honor Award from the State Department (1997), the Haifa University Humanitarian Award (1997), the Ronald H. Brown Award from the U.S.-Israel Science and Technology Commission (1999), the Justice Louis D. Brandeis Award (2000), an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem (2000), and the Negev Award from Ben Gurion University (2001).

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