In memory of Martin Indyk

Martin Indyk lives in my heart and memory as one of our country’s truly great public servants.

During my decade at Brookings, Martin was director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, vice president for Foreign Policy, and then (after I became a Nonresident Senior Fellow) he became Brookings’s executive vice president. Over those years, and beyond, he was a terrific friend, mentor, and colleague to so many of us, and especially to me.

Martin was a passionate believer, advocate, and gifted practitioner in our craft. He believed in mentoring the next generation, in investing in young scholars and giving them the tools to carry forward our tradition of applied scholarship.

He taught us all so much about our world. He taught us how to capture big ideas; how to present the essence of peace-making and self-governance; and how to embrace opportunities with energy, optimism, intelligence, and grace.

Martin was a master in cultivating and sustaining relationships. That includes learning how to have frank conversations that inspire people to find solutions. It also included extending kindness to people in moments of need.

May his memory be an eternal blessing.

As those who were fortunate enough to benefit from working with and learning from Martin can attest, he was a warm and funny colleague with a tart sense of humor who did not hesitate to inform you of the error of your policy ways. He was quick (and alas, correct) to inform me that my optimism for an Obama-era two-state conciliation was overconfident. But he softened the blow by sharing all the things that he was working on and generously inviting me to participate. His long experience as a policy expert and analyst in Middle East affairs gave him an unparalleled ability to look over the horizon. He made all of Brookings’ Middle East work—particularly the Saban Fora—global must-stops for anybody interested in any of these problems and how to solve them. His is the latest passing in a generation of giants, including his friend Henry Kissinger who so fascinated him. I loved hearing updates on the progress of his book about Kissinger during our Brookings’ cafeteria lunches. He will be terribly missed by the extended Brookings family and foreign policy scholars and practitioners everywhere.

Martin Indyk was one of the great U.S. and world diplomats focusing on the Middle East. He dedicated his career to working tirelessly on some of the most intractable issues in international relations. His distinguished career included serving as a special assistant to President Bill Clinton and as senior director of the Near East and South Asian affairs at the U.S. National Security Council. Prestigiously, Martin was twice appointed the U.S. ambassador to Israel (from April 1995 to September 1997 and again between January 2000 and July 2001). Between 2013 and 2014, Martin also served as the U.S. special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

Martin was a great colleague and boss at Brookings, serving first as senior fellow and later as vice president for Foreign Policy. My interactions with Martin started when I joined Brookings early in my career and included many spirited discussions about Afghanistan and Pakistan and the struggling U.S. efforts there. When Martin became vice president of Foreign Policy, our interactions came to encompass a much wider range of issues—from his authorizing my travel to do fieldwork across Afghanistan and teaching me how to satisfy the bureaucratic requirement for such authorizations—to dealing with criminality and security in Mexico and the U.S.-Mexico bilateral relationship. I have particularly fond memories of our trip to Mexico in November 2016 with a Brookings delegation.

Martin was a fun, tough-minded interlocutor, a generous teacher of how to maneuver bureaucracies, and a highly valued colleague who is missed very much.

When I arrived as one of Embassy Tel Aviv’s “Gaza watchers” in May 1995, Martin Indyk, who arrived the previous month for his first tenure as ambassador, was already troubled about deteriorating support for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Israelis opposed to the peace process pointed to the January 1995 Beit Lid suicide bombing, in which 21 Israeli soldiers and 1 Israeli civilian were killed, as evidence of the risks. A year later, four suicide bombings over nine days in late February and early March killed over 60 Israelis, and Israel’s security response spiked Palestinian unemployment to unprecedented levels. Martin worried—presciently—that demagogues and extremists on both sides would weaponize popular discontent to undermine the Oslo process.

Part of Martin’s response is well known. His lifelong personal and professional commitment to Israel’s security gave him credibility to reinforce Prime Minister Rabin’s instinct to continue negotiations while fighting terrorism. But he simultaneously, even frenetically, sought practical ways to reverse the collapsing Palestinian economy, reeling from Israeli security measures. Martin enlisted me in his quest to promote the Palestinian economy without undermining Israel’s security.

Martin’s goal was not the elusive “economic peace” that some Israelis and their American cheerleaders advocate in hopes of distracting the Palestinians from their national aspirations. He did not view Palestinian economic viability as a substitute for Palestinian statehood but rather as an essential element to Palestinian support for the concept of two states living side by side in peace and security. And Martin pushed and prodded me to develop pragmatic ideas based on my daily engagements in the Gaza Strip to mitigate the impact of Israel’s then-intermittent “closure” policies.

None of this was rocket science. We developed lists of measures—back-to-back transport depots, escorted truck convoys to get Palestinian exports to Israeli ports, pipelines across the Israeli-Gaza seamline to move fuel, and so forth. Martin, often impatient with my analysis (“any other ideas?” he frequently snapped at me), insisted on occasional trips to Gaza to refine ideas with Palestinian business representatives and advisors—in the process creating amusing, and often exhausting, diplomatic drama with an enraged U.S. Consul-General in Jerusalem, who had the overall policy lead at the time on the Palestinian side of the peace process ledger.

Stomach butterflies fluttered the first time Martin grabbed me, then a mid-level officer, to accompany him to advocate for our proposals with senior Israeli officials. With our constantly evolving lists to match the changing Israeli security regime, we, along with Embassy Tel Aviv’s deputy chief of mission, became regular pests in Israeli policy circles, including Shimon Peres as foreign minister and then, after Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination in November 1995, as prime minister. On our side were some senior Israeli military officials who, I believe, appreciated that an American of Martin’s rank and credibility was essentially making what would have been their arguments to Israel’s political leadership about the dangers to Israel of Palestinian economic collapse and how to address, securely, the challenges.

Admittedly, the implementation of our ideas was a mixed picture and never fully reversed the economic and employment impact of Israeli closure policies. “Continued occupation with a softer face,” one Palestinian friend muttered to me. Moreover, with Bibi Netanyahu’s narrow electoral victory over Shimon Peres in May 1996, the Oslo process was suddenly on life support. As prime minister, Netanyahu delayed or (via renegotiations such as over Hebron) watered down the implementation of what had been agreed in the September 1995 Interim Agreement (dubbed “Oslo II”).

In 2000, Martin returned for a second go as U.S. ambassador, yanking me out of my boring-but-pleasant assignment in Tunisia to be part of his team. The trade and travel measures we had pitched several years earlier weathered—barely—the outbreak of the Second Intifada in late 2000.

These measures did not survive the recent October 7 massacre, but as recently as a few months ago, Martin, characteristically, was already contemplating the revival of the two-state solution. His example of keeping his eye on the strategic goal while diving into the practical details inspired those of us privileged to have worked for and with him. As I finally told him only a few days before his death, he more than any other single person defined my own career path, by pushing me beyond what I thought was possible, in Gaza in the mid-1990s and subsequently.

Martin was always generous with his time with me. One day, for example, we were walking into the institution at the same time, and I asked him “Can you give me a 30-second description of what is going on in Israel right now?” He responded, “Come up to my office and I can explain it all to you.” We met in his office, and he gave me a 30-minute briefing that was so incredibly informative, it still frames my understanding of the situation.

Martin will always be remembered widely as a brilliant and committed diplomat, a scholar, and a wonderful colleague. Yet from my perspective—and I am sure some of my Brookings colleagues—the biggest loss I feel is his friendship and good nature, his appreciation for life, his passion for his work, his dedication to his family—his children and grandchildren and to his wonderful wife, Gahl—and his love of music and cooking. He had a very dry but wonderful sense of humor, a strong sense of history, and a strong commitment to what was good and right rather than what was the current flavor of the day or month.

So many of us were lucky to have him as a friend, colleague, and fellow scholar, and as an example of what public service could achieve, despite incredible obstacles. He was incredible in his dignity in the face of horrendous adversity, looking death in the eye and not giving up. His 10-year battle with cancer was far from easy, yet Martin managed to still appreciate life while still fighting it. We will miss him terribly and will always benefit from having had the chance to have him in our midst, albeit for too short a time.

Martin was an exceptional statesman and scholar but he was also a remarkable mentor and a beloved colleague. Even though we knew this moment was coming, his death is a profound loss. Martin lived by and up to his words. He gave the best advice when making a difficult decision about taking on a professional challenge: to do it only if you could be part of the solution. If it looked like you were becoming part of the problem, then pull back or leave. Martin was always part of the solution. He stepped up to tackle the most intractable problems. They are now harder to solve without him.

My first encounter with Martin was unusual. I was working for the U.N. in the Middle East, and I’d taken a phone call from an American diplomat, whose message I would characterize as arrogance unleavened by empathy. That evening, on my cell phone, I vented to my boss, Terje Rød-Larsen. The next morning, Martin called Terje and said to him: “Do tell that young Bruce Jones not to be so rude about the Americans on an open cellphone. We do listen, you know.”

I was chastened (and impressed by U.S. intelligence); but characteristically, Martin didn’t hold it against me. We would go on to work closely together on finding creative solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in the region and in Track 1.5 sessions at Brookings. Later, he hired me as his deputy and then pushed me forward to replace him as vice president. It was a privilege; but I was only one of several people at Brookings, and in Washington, and in the Middle East, that he took the time to care about and care for and help forward.

He told me once he felt like he’d been put on Earth for two purposes: to pursue peace and to build think tanks. He pursued both causes to the very end, with energy, creativity, and attention to the well-being of the people around him. A true gentleman, an incisive thinker, and an estimable diplomat—a rare breed. He is missed.

I still to this day vividly recall the day early in the summer of 2012 when, as vice president of Foreign Policy, Martin called me to give me the great news that enabled me to join Brookings. Once I got there in January 2013, he welcomed me with the warmth that so very much represented his widely recognized gift of fostering human connections. Each time business brought me into his office I sensed that warmth. A warmth that was especially reflected in a gentle skill with which he was so good at motivating me in my work.

I will always cherish the memories of the times when our paths crossed at Brookings. The one that stands out the most for me is from April 2016 when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan came to Brookings to deliver a talk on “Global challenges and Turkey’s goals for the year 2023,” the centennial of the Turkish republic. Erdoğan’s security details had provoked havoc when they scuffled with protesters in front of Brookings, including journalist Amberin Zaman from Al-Monitor, who was previously with The Economist. Martin, together with Strobe Talbott, then the Brookings president, handled this embarrassing scene and crisis with such diplomatic grace, resolution, and skill, ensuring the scuffles ended and the event was held with the very journalists and others whom Erdoğan’s security team tried to block.

For me, it was a privilege to observe, firsthand, Martin fielding the very qualities that he was well known for in handling difficult situations. Best was when Martin then went on, as the moderator of the event, to calmly quiz Erdoğan on Turkey’s fast-deteriorating democracy in front of a packed auditorium. By choosing not to take the bait, Erdoğan betrayed how he would go on to consolidate his now widely recognized authoritarian regime.

Martin was a stellar scholar-practitioner and institution-builder, an outstanding boss and mentor, and a wonderful human being. His impact in the Middle East is well known, but he also contributed to a better understanding of India and U.S.-India ties. While a Middle East expert, he recognized the broader global picture and regional interconnections. Through that lens, before it was conventional wisdom, he saw in India a country that would matter to U.S. interests, whose worldview and choices it was important to understand, and where think tanks could help with ideas and capacity-building. Martin had never stepped foot in India before 2010. Yet, along with Strobe Talbott, he was an indispensable driving force behind the creation of the Brookings Institution India Centre—what is today the Center for Social and Economic Progress, a thriving think tank in New Delhi—and the expansion of India research and analysis at Brookings. His efforts were tireless, his willingness to listen and learn was boundless, and his excitement about engaging with people was infectious.

Beyond ideas and institutions, Martin’s legacy will also include the individuals that he mentored and inspired. In Brookings Foreign Policy, in somewhat of a departure, he brought on younger scholars like Megan Bradley, Natan Sachs, Tom Wright, and me.

On a personal note, Martin changed my life—with that opportunity, yes, but also from what I learned from him. Along with his wisdom, I will miss his humor—as we tried to explain cricketing terms to Talbott, compared Kissinger stories from the archives, or debated whether Mumbai or Delhi was a better city (none better than Sydney, of course)—and fondly remember his kindness to both me and my family.

Ambassador Martin Indyk leaves an incredible professional legacy of public service, scholarship, institution building, and devotion to the cause of peace between Israel and its neighbors. But Martin was much more than the titles he held and the policies he advanced, as important as those remain.

As a critic of the “dual containment” approach to Iraq and Iran that Martin had famously articulated during the Clinton administration, I came to work for him in 2007 with some trepidation. Those concerns proved to be completely unfounded. Martin was not just open to but eager to engage with perspectives that challenged his own. I used to marvel that my boss probably disagreed with at least half of what I said and yet always gave me opportunities to speak and listened to what I had to say.

In turn, I learned so much from Martin, including through his first book “Innocent Abroad,” which details how the phrase “dual containment” misrepresented the nuanced and differentiated policy toward two dangerous regimes that he had advocated. Martin’s leadership at Brookings taught me that all ideas are improved by lively debates, that effective policy requires interrogating alternatives, that solutions require bringing people together—ideally over good food.

Martin brought vision and ambition to everything he did. He was not too important to suffer the details, down to the font on the name cards, but he dreamed big and inspired others to do the same. He championed serious research and books, and he held himself to the high standards that he set for his team. His latest book, “Master of the Game,” earned its many accolades via years of archival work, interviews, and drafting.

Ultimately, though, what set Martin apart from so many other Washingtonians was his heart. He made space and took time to help so many of us advance in our careers, and the community that he fostered in the early years of building our Middle East center produced at least three marriages! The only email that I have archived in 17 years is the one Martin sent me after my father passed away. I reread his words of comfort and wisdom often, with immense gratitude for his generosity of spirit.

There is so much to say about Martin Indyk, one of the finest strategists and diplomats—and friends—I have known in my life. But I will focus on one specific area that perhaps I was fortunate to experience more than most others, since we wrote a book together. Martin was a fantastic writer. And that’s because he was a fantastic thinker—with an incisive analytical mind, a sense of humor, a sense of drama, and a sense of history. Plus, a great ability to put himself in the shoes of other people, with personal as well as strategic empathy.

With our great friend and colleague Ken Lieberthal, Martin and I wrote a book, “Bending History,” on President Barack Obama’s foreign policy over the first three years of Obama’s presidency. By that point, I had known Martin for a decade and was already incredibly impressed by his previous book, “Innocent Abroad.” I will never forget its central lesson—that in life, and in foreign policy/diplomacy, you need to be ready for opportunity when opportunity presents itself. The book is in part a lamentation on how the Clinton administration missed its chance with Syria in the late 1990s. I will never forget that argument.

But back to our book. Please check out Martin’s chapters if you get the chance (you don’t need to read mine, but you should also read Ken’s, as his are an early assessment of the Obama administration’s attempt at a rebalancing/pivot to Asia). They are deeply insightful. They are crisp. They read like a novel. And they are so honest. Even though, when the book was published around 2013, Martin was actually about to be named Obama’s Mideast peace negotiator, he was blunt in his criticism of Obama’s Mideast policy to that point. Martin’s honesty, integrity, and lifelong commitment to the goal of peace in the Middle East would have it no other way. It was some of the most courageous and trenchant writing I have ever read in a Brookings book—or any other type of book for that matter.

I last saw Martin in the summer of 2023. He was facing health challenges even then, but as always, he was kind, empathetic, courageous, and undaunted. I will forever cherish the friendship, and forever admire the man.

There were three dimensions to Martin Indyk’s impressive career:

The academic career. Martin had a Ph.D. from his native Australia. His preferences were policy and applied research but when he engaged in academic writing he produced first class work. “Innocent Abroad” was an excellent book and his book on Henry Kissinger’s Middle Eastern diplomacy was a masterpiece.

As a diplomat, Martin distinguished himself in a series of senior and influential positions: The senior Middle East adviser in the National Security Council, U.S. ambassador to Israel (twice), assistant secretary of state in charge of the Bureau for Near Eastern Affairs, and a peace negotiator with John Kerry trying to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

As an institutional builder, he built from scratch two of Washington’s most important research institutes dealing with the Middle East: the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings. At Brookings, his brief was expanded and as vice president and then executive vice president he had a great impact working closely with Strobe Talbott.

Beyond this list of achievements lay Martin the man: smart, intelligent, creative, ambitious in a good way, and above all a good and loyal friend. I met Martin when he was a graduate student. We became friendly and then friends and colleagues. In recent years, I discovered unfortunately another side of Martin: the courage and determination with which he fought the illness that ultimately defeated him. In this valiant fight, he was lucky to have his wife Gahl as a loving and devoted partner.

Martin’s remarkable career was only rivaled by what a remarkable person he was. He was an exceptional boss, colleague, and mentor. What stands out especially is how generous he was with this time not only toward high society on Mediterranean yachts, where his style matched anyone’s, but toward young people who had nothing tangible to offer him but needed his wisdom. It was the latter group that received his real care.

I was a beneficiary of this, though far from alone. He hired me in 2012 as part of a group of young scholars. I was hired to work on issues he knew a lot about, but rather than kick down, he deferred to me a question on a panel or a press interview and introduced me to senior policymakers in Washington and abroad. He was eager for those around him to succeed and took every opportunity to make sure they did.

He also had a rare intellectual curiosity for policy circles, routinely encouraging and seeking out opinions that differed from his own, publishing them, and giving them a stage. He was a rigorous and honest scholar, striving to be aware of his biases and unsparing with others’. He would routinely ask why you thought he might be wrong, and—a rarity—he listened to your answer.

This applied to his main obsession: Arab-Israeli peace. His commitment to it was deep, but far from naïve. When he became the special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian peace, he knew how long the odds were. Ahead of time, he asked a few of us to quietly devise policy in case the peace effort failed. But he was undeterred by long odds for a worthy goal, slim chances or not.

Martin’s voice, with its distinct accent and cadence, his wisdom, curiosity, and generosity, are already sorely missed. He was a class act and a real mensch.

May his memory be a blessing.

To my great regret, I never got to know Martin Indyk as well as some of my other colleagues. But I am forever indebted to him, because there would be no Fritz Stern Chair on Germany and trans-Atlantic relations at Brookings without him. Nor would I still be in Washington or the holder of that chair. Martin hatched the project of the chair together with the banker Henry Arnhold, who had been friends with the distinguished historian Fritz Stern. Arnhold and Stern had both fled to the United States from persecution in Nazi Germany. (It was only when I read Martin’s obituaries that I realized that he had been born in London to immigrants from Poland.) I treasure my memories of going to Berlin with him to speak with possible donors. But most of all, I am grateful to have crossed paths with this supremely capable diplomat and negotiator, who managed to combine a genuine passion for the things he cared about with a sublimely aristocratic indifference to convention. We were so lucky to have known him.

Martin will be remembered as an esteemed diplomat, an institution builder, and a renowned historian. But as his personal assistant for nearly 10 years at Brookings and at the State Department, I know that, for those who worked most closely with him, he will also be remembered as a man of deep integrity, boundless generosity, and a true zest for life. With his shock of white hair, his refined accent, and his impeccable style, Martin was a commanding presence in any room. It was clear that he held himself and his staff to the very highest of standards. But instead of demanding excellence, Martin inspired it. Working for Martin meant having the privilege of learning from someone who cared passionately about his work, led with dignity, and strived to make the world a better place. I am grateful to Martin for the impact he had on my career, but most especially, for the lasting inspiration he provided every step of the way.

Martin was a special man whom I had the pleasure of knowing for more than three and a half decades, becoming colleagues and friends along the way, including many years at Brookings. One need not say the obvious about his extraordinary accomplishments in the diplomatic and think tank worlds; they speak for themselves. To my mind, two things especially distinguished Martin from many other accomplished people: He confronted issues, even those on which he had deep convictions, with an open mind, allowing his thoughts and positions to evolve along the way. I do not know many in the professional world I inhabit who have evolved to the degree that Martin did, taking in all that he experienced and confronted during a long, rich career. His passion and commitment remained to the end, but many of his positions and views shifted.

In a polarized and polarizing town, working on issues that are often even more polarizing, Martin managed to keep his humanity. He was a kind, nurturing, generous human being to those he worked with—a wonderful colleague and a loyal friend to many, in ways that transcended politics. Along the way, Martin mentored many younger colleagues everywhere he worked, and he touched many lives, including mine. In remembering Martin, a former mutual colleague at Brookings, whose views often differed from Martin’s, wrote me saying: “He was a good man. I’ll never forget all he did for me at Brookings and after I left.” Martin and his voice will be missed.