Ron Dermer (; born 16 April 1971) is an Israeli politician and diplomat who served as the Minister of Strategic Affairs from 2022 until 2025 and as head of the negotiations for hostages' release in 2025. He served as the Israeli Ambassador to the United States from 2013 to 2021.
Early life Dermer was born and raised in Miami Beach, Florida, to Jay Dermer, a lawyer from New York who was Mayor of Miami Beach from 1967 to 1971, and Yaffa, née Rosenthal, born in Mandate Palestine. Her parents, Joseph and Rivka, had fled growing antisemitism in Poland and Germany in the 1930s. A few years after the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the family emigrated to Florida. Dermer visited Israel during his childhood to see his grandmother Rivka, who returned to live there after Joseph’s death.
His father died of a heart attack in 1984, two weeks before Dermer's Bar Mitzvah.Bibi’s Brain: Meet Ron Dermer, Israel’s new ambassador to the U.S. Tablet. 20 September 2011 His brother, David Dermer served as Miami Beach mayor from 2001 to 2007.Former Miami Beach resident Ron Dermer to be Israel’s ambassador to U.S. Miami Herald. 10 July 2013
Growing up, Dermer attended Rabbi Alexander S. Gross Hebrew Academy, a Jewish Day School in Miami Beach, with Shmuley Boteach.In America, Lapid would see that Dermer is a rock star The Jerusalem Post. 31 July 2019
Education In 1993, Dermer graduated magna cum laude from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with concentrations in Finance and Management. While there, he was a member of the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity and a founding member of the Jewish Heritage Program run by Rabbi Menachem Schmidt. At a 2014 Wharton School alumni dinner, Dermer said in a speech that he chose to attend the school after reading Donald J. Trump's book The Art of the Deal.
Early career Following his time at the University of Pennsylvania, Dermer worked for a year in Washington, D.C., with University of Pennsylvania adjunct professor Dr. Frank Luntz, where he learned about polling and political strategy. Luntz later described Dermer as "the most talented student I've ever had."
In 1993, Dermer left Washington to earn an additional degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) from Oxford University. While there, he served as President of the Oxford University L'Chaim Society.
In 1995, while still at Oxford, Dermer conducted the polling and formulated the strategy for Natan Sharansky's Yisrael BaAliyah party in its successful 1996 Knesset election campaign. Dermer worked for Sharansky again in the Knesset elections of 1999, and in 2000 Sharansky recommended that former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, then planning a political comeback, meet with Dermer. Dermer has been advising Netanyahu ever since and is one of his closest confidantes.
From 2001 to 2004, Dermer wrote a column called The Numbers Game for The Jerusalem Post. In 2004, he co-wrote with Sharansky the book The Case For Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror.
From 2005 to 2008, Dermer served as the economic attaché at the Israeli Embassy in Washington. This position required that Dermer give up his American citizenship. Dermer explained his decision to do so in an article entitled "Proud to Have Been an American," initially published in the New York Sun and republished in The Jerusalem Post under the title "Why I Left the America I Love". Dermer's appointment as Israel's Minister of Economic Affairs in the United States was made while Netanyahu was serving as Finance Minister under Ariel Sharon. During his tenure as economic envoy, Dermer helped secure the 2007, 10-year memorandum of understanding on military assistance to Israel. He also worked to convince individual states to divest state pension funds from Iran. In 2007, his native state of Florida became the first state to pass divestment legislation.
In 2008, after his return to Israel, Dermer worked on Netanyahu's successful election campaign for Prime Minister, and in 2009 Dermer was named Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister. While in the Prime Minister's Office, Dermer was considered Netanyahu's closest adviser and strategic consultant., Jewish_Institute_for_National_Security_of_America The Jerusalem Post said he "runs much of the interference with the White House, and is intimately involved in the diplomatic process with the Palestinians … [and] writes many of Netanyahu's speeches". In 2011, Allison Hoffman of Tablet magazine called him "Bibi's Brain", quoting a long-time observer of Israeli politics as saying, "if you look at Ron, you see Bibi."
On 28 December 2012, Israeli newspaper Makor Rishon reported that Dermer's name was being floated as a potential replacement for Michael Oren, Israel's Ambassador to the United States. The Prime Minister's Office declined to comment on the report and the Embassy of Israel in Washington spokesman called the report "baseless". In March 2013, Dermer left the Prime Minister's Office, and on 9 July 2013, the Prime Minister's office announced that Dermer would replace Oren as Israel's Ambassador to the United States.
Diplomatic career (2013–2021) ]
In September 2016, towards the end of the Obama administration, Israel secured from the United States a 10-year, 38 billion dollar military aid package, the largest deal of its kind at the time. In December 2017, during the first Trump presidency, the US recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and in May 2018 moved the American Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. That same month, Israel achieved its top diplomatic priority when the Trump administration withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran. In March 2019, the US also recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. In 2020, Dermer played a key role in bringing about the Abraham Accords which normalized Israel's relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. In the wake of the Accords, two more normalization agreements with Morocco and Sudan were signed in late 2020. In light of his contribution to the Abraham Accords and the subsequent normalization agreements, Dermer was nominated by Alan Dershowitz, a loyal backer of US president Donald Trump, along with Jared Kushner (Trump's son-in-law), his deputy Avi Berkowitz and US ambassador to Israel David Friedman, for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Dermer was also credited by Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer, for his work in helping Israel obtain millions of Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines and by the convicted American spy Jonathan Pollard for his work in securing his release and arrival in Israel.
Despite tensions over the Iran Deal and Netanyahu's speech to Congress, Dermer helped negotiate a 38 billion dollar military aid package with the US, the largest military aid deal of its kind ever.
In 2019, then Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu named Dermer, along with former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen, as potential successors.
In July 2019, the Israeli Civil Service Commission rejected a request by Netanyahu and then Foreign Minister, Israel Katz, to extend Dermer's term as Israel's Ambassador to the United States because Israel was in the middle of an election campaign and because Dermer's tenure had already been unusually long. Dermer's term was ultimately extended through 20 January 2021, after serving more than seven years in the post. He was succeeded by Gilad Erdan.Shuttle diplomacy: UN envoy Erdan starts 2nd role as Israel’s ambassador to US The Times of Israel. 21 January 2021
Iran nuclear deal In 2015, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress over the Iran Deal. Dermer is widely believed to have engineered that speech in which Netanyahu, against the wishes of then-President Barack Obama, urged the US not to become a party to the Nuclear Deal with Iran – the so-called JCPOA—a move members of the Obama administration saw as a politically motivated breach of diplomatic protocol.
Despite the allegation, however, both Dermer and Netanyahu were adamant that their opposition to the JCPOA was rooted in profound concerns about the security of the State of Israel and that they had a moral responsibility to speak out on the issue. As Netanyahu stated, the deal “could well threaten the survival of my country and the future of my people” because it would put Iran, “the foremost sponsor of global terrorism…weeks away from having enough enriched uranium for an entire arsenal of nuclear weapons, and this with full international legitimacy.”
A core problem with the Iran Nuclear Deal for both Netanyahu and Dermer were its so-called sunset clauses, in which all restrictions placed on Iran's nuclear program would be “automatically removed” in several years, regardless of Iran's behavior in the region or its continued efforts to destroy the State of Israel. As Dermer stated in 2015, “[Under the JCPOA,] there is no linkage whatsoever between the removal of these restrictions and Iran’s behavior. In 10 years, Iran could be even more aggressive toward its neighbors, sponsor even more terrorism around the globe and work even harder to destroy Israel, and the restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program would still be automatically removed.” Dermer went on to stress that the sunset clauses meant that in just a few years, “Iran won’t have to sneak into or break into the nuclear club. Under this deal, it could simply decide to walk in.” President Obama himself admitted this weakness of the deal in an interview on NPR in which he stated that in year 13 of the deal (2028), the breakout time for Iran “would have shrunk almost down to zero.”
In July 2015, the Obama administration made the US a party to the JCPOA. In January 2016, the US lifted nuclear-related sanctions against Iran, even as the State Department continued to list Iran as “the foremost state sponsor of terrorism” and even though a majority of the US House of Representatives voted against the deal and a majority of the Senate (58 senators) opposed the deal, with only a filibuster preventing a formal vote against the deal in the Senate.
Netanyahu's and Dermer's fight to defeat the nuclear deal with Iran would bear fruit with a change of administration in Washington. In May 2015, two months after Netanyahu's dramatic speech to Congress mobilized opposition to the deal, Donald Trump announced his candidacy for president. With the Republican Party firmly opposed to the deal, then-candidate Trump pledged to withdraw from it, calling it “a disaster” and “the worst deal ever negotiated.” In September 2017 at the United Nations, President Donald Trump called the Iran Deal an “embarrassment” because it gave Iran “cover” to produce nuclear weapons, and in May 2018, Trump withdrew the US from the Iran Deal and reinstated sanctions against Iran.
Upon leaving his post as ambassador, Dermer stated Netanyahu's speech to Congress was the “proudest moment” of his tenure in Washington. In an interview, Dermer explained: “That speech was the proudest moment I had as ambassador because the job of an Israeli prime minister is to speak out on matters that affect the security and national survival of his country. A prime minister who wouldn’t answer an invitation to speak before the American Congress and public on such an issue would not be worthy of sitting five minutes in his chair.” He also went on to discuss how Netanyahu's speech to Congress paved the way for the historic Abraham Accords.
Professional career (2021–2022) In April 2022, Dermer went to work for Exigent Capital, an investment management firm based in Jerusalem. Dermer led the firm's strategic investments in the Persian Gulf states.
Political career (2022–2026)