The (Martin) Indyk Sqawks and Fingerpoints

I think I misunderstood a story I heard about last night and that I was not supposed to report it.

But Carl has.

This is what was known to me some 12 hours ago:

Some of the participants at the President's Conference in Jerusalem witnessed a very public display of uncivil and undiplomatic behavior on Thursday afternoon, around 5:30 pm. In the main entrance hall, in full view, former US Ambassador to Israel and State Dep't hack and now being financially supported by Haim Sabban at the Brookings Institute, Australian-born Martin Indyk (who did consider Gaza "A failed terrorist state" in 2007 but still promotes a two-state solution as if that isn't a failed diplomatic position) went up to Prof. Gerald Steinberg, head of NGO Monitor and began to shout at him. Indyk then turned around, made a standard obscene gesture with his finger, and stormed out.

Well, after Baker's "f" word and the French Ambassador to Great Britain's "sh*tty" remark, one would think that a scatalogical maneuver by so esteemed a personnage like Indyk would be out of order or very faux pas. I do know that a fellow blogger approached Indyk and asked a real question and she received almost a sqawk (*), whihc, considering his moniker, is pro forma.

I wonder if he has any other uses for his fingers besides perhaps, to unsully his olfactory organ.

It is surmised that this incident was apparently related to the New Israel Fund. Indyk had joined NIF's board, and in 2010, his effort to get NIF funding in Australia was cancelled after a series of embarrassments. Indyk wrote a crude column directed at the head of NGO Monitor, Steinberg, and blaming him for exposing the NIF facade. NIF tried again, as NGO Monitor published new reports detailing NIF's central role and cover-up in funding BDS-supporting anti-Israel NGOs like CWP, Adalah, etc. Apparently, the Australians did not buy the NIF-Indyk line, and this, most probably, could explain his uncouth behavior and loss of emotional control.

I hope his daughter his colleague's daughter, who seems to have semi-followed her father's footsteps, and even found that the residents of Tekoa, who she visited, "challenged her preconceptions", will stop short of silly, immature temper-tantrums.  She should also condsider an ideological-political reverse. [Sorry, I erred: The one who "met kind, warm people who challenged her preconceptions" in Tekoa is in fact Aaron David Miller's child, not Martin Indyk's].

Look where it got her father's friend.



(*)

In Yiddish, an indyk is a...turkey.
^