When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced two months after the March 2015 elections that he was appointing his close associate Dore Gold as director general of the Foreign Ministry, political pundits surmised that Gold would become the government’s main liaison with the United States and the prime minister’s operational arm. Gold, known to have enjoyed Netanyahu’s trust since the mid-1990s, was expected to become the strong man at the Foreign Ministry, especially given Netanyahu’s decision to forgo appointing a foreign minister and to hold on to that portfolio himself despite the criticism this engendered.
Over the past 30 years, Gold had become one of the best-known Israelis in American diplomatic circles. The US-born Gold, Netanyahu’s adviser in 1996 during his first term as prime minister, was subsequently appointed by Netanyahu as Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, where he served from 1997 to 1999. Now, contrary to all expectations, and a mere 18 months after that promising Foreign Ministry appointment, Gold announced Oct. 13 that he was stepping down.