Martin Indyk was twice ambassador to Israel. He used to be research director for AIPAC and was the founding Executive Director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
When people write about “The Israel Lobby,” whether sensibly or otherwise, the very icon of their subject is Martin
Indyk.
In this translation of an interview with Yediot Achronot (interesting that there is, as yet, no English version of the original article), Indyk speaks quite bluntly on a variety of issues. Most of them concern the real reasons why Camp David failed (not surprisingly, Indyk makes it clear that the US and Israel were just as much to blame as the Palestinians), and why US involvement in the peace process has brought no progress.
You’ll be hard-pressed to find a better explanation as to why Obama is heading in the right direction and why anyone who has any concern about Israel’s future or the Palestinians’ well-being should be doing everything they can to support him, even if their own ideologies don’t match his.