Indyk under fire for anti-Semitic tropes

It's been just five days since I reported that Martin Indyk attacked the Washington Free Beacon's Adam Kredo for using anonymous sources after having been one so often himself. Now, there's a much more serious and well-substantiated charge against Indyk: He's a Jewish anti-Semite.

Martin Indyk — who served as President Bill Clinton’s ambassador to Israel and assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, followed by a stint as the Obama administration’s envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations — is being urged to clarify comments he made in a tape-recorded private conversation from 1989, in which he reportedly said Israelis are “paranoid,” “arrogant” and “think the rules of society do not apply [to them]” because “they are the goy’s rules.”

Indyk, who is Jewish himself, also reportedly applied this assessment to the character of Jews generally, saying that Jewish people “would do whatever they can to avoid paying taxes,” and believe it is justified to “find a way to ignore the law or get around it.” He added, “In my own family, my grandfather used to stay up nights to figure out how to avoid paying taxes.”

Professor Eunice G. Pollack, an historian of antisemitism and co-editor of the Encyclopedia of American Jewish History, told JNS.org that Indyk’s reported statements “echo three of the most infamous centuries-old tropes of antisemites.”

“You have an updated version of the classic ‘Jewish swindler,’ combined with the ‘disloyal Jew’ who evades his patriotic duty to pay taxes, and the millennia-old ‘arrogant Jew’ who, in a more religious era, was accused of deriving his arrogance from his partner, Satan,” said Pollack.

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Indyk’s alleged comments were made while he was executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and were brought to light in 1995 by Amcha-the Coalition for Jewish Concerns, after Indyk was nominated as ambassador to Israel. At that time, neither the news media nor senators involved in his confirmation hearing gave the allegations any attention.

Indyk has not responded to multiple requests for comment by JNS.org.

This is not the first time Indyk’s remarks about Israel have drawn criticism.

Adam Kredo, a senior foreign policy writer for the Washington Free Beacon, told JNS.org that Indyk “is known among reporters for anonymously criticizing Israel in the press, for planting stories meant to pressure the Jewish state into making concessions [and for] leading the Obama administration’s efforts over the years to discredit Israel and blame it for the failure in peace talks.”

I'm sure that Indyk would say much worse about Israel and Jews today (I once watched him have a shouting match with several participants at the President's Conference in 2011). And I'm sure that $14 million donation from Qatar to the Brookings Institute, which Indyk heads, would have nothing to do with that. Of course not. It's why Qatar gave him the money in the first place.