Former US Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk has passed away at the age of 73, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy announced Thursday.
“Martin was a true American success story. A native of Australia, he came to Washington to have an impact on the making of American Middle East policy and that he surely did – as pioneering scholar, insightful analyst and remarkably effective policy entrepreneur,” said Dr. Robert Satloff, the Institute’s Segal Executive Director Robert Satloff and Indyk’s successor as leader of the organization he founded.
“He was a visionary who not only founded an organization based on the idea that wise public policy is rooted in sound research, he embodied it. His contributions to the growth and development of The Washington Institute -- and to the definition and execution of U.S. Middle East policy, more generally -- are both legendary and immeasurable.”
No cause of death was given.
Indyk was born in 1951 in London to Jewish parents from Poland. In the early 1970s, he studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and volunteered at Kibbutz Alumim during the Yom Kippur War. He moved to the US in 1982.
Indyk served as the US Ambassador to Israel for two peiods during the Clinton Administration, first from 1995-1997, and again from 2000-2001.
He also served U.S. Special Envoy for Israeli–Palestinian Negotiations from 2013 to 2014 under the Obama Administration.