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.
The surprising resignation appears likely to further weaken the Foreign Ministry, which Netanyahu had already crippled in recent years. In fact, Netanyahu’s mistrust of the Foreign Ministry during his current term has deepened, and Gold was probably unable to provide him with the reassurance he sought that he could “control” the ministry’s officials. Gold cited personal reasons and a desire to spend more time with his family as the cause of his resignation, but according to diplomatic sources, that’s not the real reason. Apparently, Gold had been mulling the resignation for several months, after finding himself perpetually excluded from decision-making on issues of diplomacy.
The breaking point occurred during Netanyahu’s visit to New York for the UN General Assembly's annual gathering and for meetings with President Barack Obama and other top officials. Although Gold went to New York as well, he was not present at the Sept. 21 meeting with Obama, in which others from Netanyahu’s entourage took part. Gold’s absence reflected the status to which the Foreign Ministry had been relegated since his appointment to lead it, in complete contradiction to his expectations and the promises Netanyahu had made that he would be a pivotal figure in Israeli diplomacy.
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