washington-report.org
How Are the Mighty Fallen!
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk’s Lost (and Found) Security Clearance
By Andrew I. Killgore
Martin Indyk, America’s ambassador to Israel, is a Zionist. Israeli
newspapers reported that Indyk declared himself such when he
went to Israel in 1995 as the first American Jewish ambassador
to the Jewish state.
Indyk’s security clearance was lifted by the State Department in
September for “suspected violations” of security standards.
Despite its restoration in October, a thousand questions
arise—along with a sense of astonished awe that such a
high-flying star in the Zionist apparat currently dominating
Washington could fall to earth, even temporarily. Moreover, the
post-restoration ambassador kept such a low profile at
October’s Sharm el-Sheikh summit as to be virtually invisible.
Born in London and reared and educated in Australia, Indyk
already held high academic and intelligence positions “down
under” before moving to Israel. There he is said to have worked
for right-wing Likud Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.
But it was in America’s capital that Indyk—former deputy director
of research at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee
(AIPAC), Israel’s Washington, DC lobby, and the first executive
director of the AIPAC-spin-off Washington Institute for Near East
Policy—leapt to a sudden stardom. In 1993 newly elected
President Bill Clinton appointed Indyk chief Middle East adviser
on the National Security Council. After having lived in New York
and Washington for a decade, Indyk benefitted from a
speeded-up process, to acquire U.S. citizenship only 10 days
before assuming his new duties.
Following his first ambassadorial assignment to Israel, Indyk
returned to Washington in 1995 as head of the Department of
State’s Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs. Then, in
1999, he returned to Israel a second time as U.S.
ambassador—reportedly at the request of Israel’s new prime
minister, Ehud Barak, the successor to Likud Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu, with whom Indyk apparently had little
affinity.
During his suspension, Indyk was prohibited from reading
classified documents and was permitted to enter the State
Department only with an escort to assure he abided by his
security restrictions.
No evidence was found of espionage or compromise of
classified information, assured the Israel-leaning New York
Times and Washington Post. Since Jewish American Jonathan
Jay Pollard was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1986 for
spying for Israel, this disclaimer has become standard, if
misleading. But just because unauthorized cameras or eyes
perusing classified documents are careful to leave no evidence
doesn’t necessarily mean that spying hasn’t taken place.
Indyk’s 1995 declaration that he is a Zionist exemplifies what
Georgetown University emeritus professor Hisham Sharabi calls
the “verbal paradigm” practiced by Israel and its supporters,
obviously including Indyk. The practitioners of this paradigm
preserve the premise that “Israeli and U.S. interests coincide”
through rigorous mental compartmentalization and a refusal to
employ or even listen to words that conflict with their basic
theme.
Given that verbal compulsion, it would seem only natural for Indyk
to treat the Israeli officers with whom he has dealt over the past
five years in both Washington and Tel Aviv as constituting no
danger to U.S. interests—and thus to let them see classified U.S.
intelligence as a matter of course. That, in fact, is the very basis
for Indyk’s recent troubles, according to an article by Israeli
military expert Ze’ev Schiff in the Hebrew-language newspaper
Ha’aretz.
The trouble with the premise that “Israeli and U.S. interests
coincide,” of course, is that it is not true. Israel has its own
interests, as does America. Pollard’s espionage resulted in
some of our stolen secrets reaching the Soviet Union. Indeed,
the holy of holies of all intelligence organizations—sources and
methods—were revealed to the Soviet Union by Israel via
Pollard.
The intriguing question—assuming Schiff is correct—is why the
Indyk case surfaced when it did. Have some U.S. secrets that the
always aggressive Israeli intelligence service may have
purloined or been given by Indyk come back to haunt or damage
the U.S. from a third or fourth party?
If that is the case, and the “Friends of Israel” in the U.S. media
cannot keep it quiet, the abiding conflict between U.S. and Israeli
interests finally may be revealed. For its own interests, the United
States very badly needs that to happen.
To be watched closely. |
