Topic: Martin Indyk

Martin Sean Indyk is Vice President for Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. Indyk served as United States ambassador to Israel and Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs during the Clinton Administration. He is arguably best known as one of the lead U.S. negotiators at the Camp David Accords. He is known as the framer of the U.S. policy of dual containment which sought to 'contain' Iraq and Iran, which were both viewed as Israel's two most important strategic adversaries at the time.

He was born on July 1, 1951 to a Jewish family in London, England, but grew up and was educated in Australia, growing up in the Sydney suburb of Castlecrag. He graduated from the University of Sydney in 1972 and received a PhD in international relations from the Australian National University in 1977. The academic and publisher Ivor Indyk is his brother. He emigrated to the United States and later gained American citizenship in 1993. He was formerly married to Jill Collier Indyk with whom he had two children, Sarah and Jacob.

In 1982, Indyk began working as a deputy research director for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a pro-Israel lobbying group in Washington. In 1985 Indyk served eight years as the founding Executive Director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a research institute specializing in analysis of Middle East policy. He has been an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies where he taught Israeli politics and foreign policy.