Veteran Middle East diplomat Martin Indyk resigned Friday as the chief US negotiator between the Israelis and Palestinians in a further sign of the collapse of the peace process. Less than a year after Secretary of State John Kerry tapped the high-profile envoy to guide a major US push for a peace deal, Indyk quit to return to a senior position at the Brookings Institution think tank. Indyk, who was born in Britain and raised in Australia, formerly worked for the main pro-Israel lobby in Washington, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and took US citizenship in 1993 as he joined the administration of then-president Bill Clinton. Kerry put a top priority on reviving Middle East diplomacy and coaxed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas back to the negotiating table last July.