Dore Gold

Gold was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and grew up in a Conservative Jewish home.[2] He attended the Orthodox Yeshiva of Hartford and Mount Hermon school in Massachusetts before studying at Columbia University.[2][4] His education combined Jewish schooling with university study of the Middle East, political science, and international law.[1][5]

At Columbia, Gold earned a bachelor’s degree in 1975, a master’s degree in 1976, and a doctorate in 1984.[1] His master’s degree was in political science, and he also received a Certificate of the Middle East Institute in 1978.[5] He studied classical Arabic, and his doctoral dissertation concerned Saudi Arabia.[6] The dissertation later formed the basis of his book Hatred’s Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism.[6] J. C. Hurwitz supervised his doctoral work, and Gold also studied Jewish texts and philosophy at Brovender’s yeshiva.[7]

Gold first visited Israel in 1976 and immigrated there in 1980.[5] He served in the Israel Defense Forces and was discharged in 1983, subsequently pursuing an academic career.[6] He was married to Ofra, and their children were named Yael and Ariel.[8]

Gold worked as a senior research fellow at Tel Aviv University’s Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies before moving into strategic-policy research at the university’s Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies.[6] From 1985 to 1996, he was a senior research associate at the Jaffee Center, where he directed its U.S. Foreign and Defense Policy Project.[1] His work there took place under the center’s director, retired major general Aharon Yariv.[6]

In 1991, Gold advised Israel’s delegation to the Madrid Peace Conference and the subsequent Arab-Israeli talks in Washington.[5] During this period, he developed a close working relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu and later became his political adviser.[6] In 1994–1995, Gold accompanied Netanyahu to meetings with Jordanian leaders in London, Amman, and Aqaba, helping establish contacts between Likud leaders and the Hashemite Kingdom.[4] These contacts provided a channel between Jordan and Likud at a time when the Labor-led Israeli government was developing its relationship with the Palestine Liberation Organization.[6]

After Netanyahu’s election victory in 1996, Gold became his foreign-policy adviser, serving from June 1996 to June 1997.[2] His responsibilities included contacts and negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and other Arab actors.[6] During Netanyahu’s first term, he also acted as an envoy to the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Jordan, and Gulf states.[1] His transition from research to government therefore involved both policy advice and direct exchanges with regional counterparts.[1][6]

Gold participated directly in negotiations leading to the 1997 Hebron Agreement and negotiated the Note for the Record supplementing the Hebron Protocol.[1][5] His work included annexes concerning reciprocal obligations between Israel and the Palestinians.[4] He also participated in negotiations involving the United States, Lebanon, Syria, and France that established the Monitoring Group for Southern Lebanon.[1][8]

From 1997 to 1999, Gold served as Israel’s eleventh Permanent Representative to the United Nations.[1] During his ambassadorship, he remained involved in Arab-Israeli diplomacy and was a member of Israel’s delegation at the 1998 Wye River negotiations between Israel and the PLO.[8] The negotiations involved Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and U.S. President Bill Clinton.[6]

Gold subsequently advised Prime Minister Ariel Sharon from 2001 to 2003.[6] He accompanied Sharon to Washington and took part in the 2003 Aqaba Summit, which included U.S. President George W. Bush.[8] During this period, Gold frequently appeared in American media as a spokesman for Sharon’s government.[6] His work for successive prime ministers thus continued alongside his leadership of a Jerusalem policy institute.[1][6]

Gold returned to advising Netanyahu on international issues around the turn of 2013–2014, with his appointment as an external adviser recorded in January 2014.[1][9] His portfolio included the Iranian nuclear program, Israeli diplomatic activity at the United Nations, and Israel–United States relations.[9]

In 2014 and 2015, Gold and retired Saudi general Anwar Majed Eshki headed delegations at five unofficial Israeli-Saudi meetings addressing shared concerns about Iran.[10] The meetings reportedly took place in India, Italy, and the Czech Republic with the knowledge and approval of their respective governments.[10] Shortly before Gold became Foreign Ministry director-general, the two appeared together at a Council on Foreign Relations event in Washington and shook hands before cameras.[10]

Gold later recalled establishing a dialogue between his Jerusalem think tank and a Saudi general’s think tank in Jeddah, including a meeting in Rome.[11] In his account, the Saudi participant proposed that they jointly lobby the U.S. Congress against the Iran nuclear agreement; Gold declined that approach but agreed to a public appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations.[11] There, the Saudi participant spoke in Arabic and Gold in English.[11]

At the Washington event, Gold warned about Iran’s regional ambitions and nuclear efforts, while emphasizing that sharing a platform did not mean that Israel and Saudi Arabia had resolved their disagreements.[10] He described the two countries as American allies and expressed hope that the encounter would lead to further discussion of their common strategic problems.[10]

In a 2019 interview, Gold recalled visiting an unnamed Arab country as Foreign Ministry director-general in 2015.[3] As he outlined areas of overlapping interest, his counterpart grinned and said that his own interests were the same as Israel’s.[3] Gold argued that Israel and several Sunni states faced common threats, identifying terrorism to the west and Iran to the east.[3] He considered the degree of openness in these relationships a central diplomatic question: some cooperation worked effectively in private, while public expressions of common interests could demonstrate that Iran had no veto over Israeli-Gulf relations.[3]

Gold also argued that Saudi-Israeli relations could not be explained simply through oil interests.[3] He emphasized Iran’s regional influence, citing its activity in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, and cautioned against publicly discussing contingency planning for instability in Saudi Arabia.[3]

Netanyahu appointed Gold director-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2015, replacing Nissim Ben-Shitreet.[12] Gold served from June 2015 until October 13, 2016.[13] He prioritized stronger diplomatic ties with countries in the Arab world and Africa, and his work included meetings with Arab officials, a visit to Cairo, strategic discussions with India and Turkey, an agreement restoring diplomatic relations with Guinea, and a meeting with Chad’s president.[14]

After leaving government, Gold returned to lead the Jerusalem Center. During his ministry tenure, he reopened Israel’s embassy in Cairo in September 2015 and pursued a diplomatic pivot toward Africa, Asia, and Muslim-majority states.[15] He also participated in the prime minister’s team dealing with Eastern Mediterranean gas issues and led a diplomatic team that re-established political dialogue with South Africa.[15]

Gold traveled to Abu Dhabi for a biannual meeting of the Council of the International Renewable Energy Agency, or IRENA.[16] There he met the agency’s director-general, Adnan Amin, and discussed opening an Israeli diplomatic liaison office to IRENA.[16] The proposed office was to be Israel’s first representative office in the United Arab Emirates, although it would not constitute a full diplomatic mission to the country.[16]

His African outreach included discussions in Rwanda about restoring Israeli diplomatic ties and political activity across the continent.[11] Gold later recalled that Rwanda’s foreign minister warned him that South Africa would be particularly difficult to reach diplomatically.[11] He said he nevertheless persisted in trying to engage South Africa.[11]

On June 16, 2016, Gold and Acting National Security Advisor Jacob Nagel headed Israel’s delegation at a U.S.-Israel Strategic Dialogue in Jerusalem.[17] U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken led the American delegation.[17] The discussions addressed security matters, shared threats, regional cooperation, and Iran, and the delegations agreed to continue coordinating on common threats.[17]

Gold also participated in dialogue with the German government during his ministry tenure and visited the Wannsee villa.[11] In congressional testimony in 2020, he recalled the January 1942 meeting there of senior SS officers to plan the murder of Europe’s Jews.[11] Asked to sign the guest book, he wrote: “We will never allow anyone to do this to us again.”[11]

Gold resigned in October 2016, citing personal reasons.[13] In his departure message, he described the position as the personal and professional peak of his diplomatic service and thanked the ministry’s staff.[13] His tenure had lasted approximately sixteen months.[15]

Gold became president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs in 2000 and led it before leaving for the Foreign Ministry.[1] He returned to its leadership after his ministry service in 2016.[15] In a later published letter, Gold said that he would step back from daily presidential duties and become president emeritus effective November 30, 2022, after twenty-two years.[18] He wrote that he intended to devote his time to issues facing the center, Israel, and the Jewish people.[18] Daniel Diker succeeded him as president in November 2022.[19]

Gold’s books covered American strategy, Israeli security, Arab politics, international institutions, and the Iranian nuclear issue.[1][8] His earlier publications included America, the Gulf, and Israel (1988), Arms Control in the Middle East (1991), which he edited, and Israel as an American Non-NATO Ally (1992).[8] He also published U.S. Military Strategy in the Middle East in 1993.[1]

His 2003 book Hatred’s Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism grew out of his doctoral research on Saudi Arabia and became a New York Times bestseller.[6] In it, Gold argued that Saudi Arabia’s promotion of Wahhabi Islam and support for American adversaries helped foster global terrorism.[6][20] The argument represented his assessment of Saudi policy and the relationship between religious promotion and terrorism.[20]

Gold followed that book with Tower of Babble: How the United Nations Has Fueled Global Chaos (2004), The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, the West, and the Future of the Holy City (2007), and The Rise of Nuclear Iran: How Tehran Defies the West (2009).[1] The Fight for Jerusalem became a U.S. bestseller and was translated into Chinese and published in Beijing by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs after Gold was invited to lecture at the Communist Party’s Central Committee.[13] The Rise of Nuclear Iran appeared on the Washington Post bestseller list.[13]

His articles appeared in Israeli, British, and American publications, including Ha’aretz, the Jerusalem Post, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, and the Daily Telegraph.[1][8] His institute later credited its work with helping popularize the phrase “Iranian octopus” in 2007 as a description of Iran’s regional reach.[7]

Gold’s diplomatic career included efforts to expand Israel’s relationships beyond its established partners, particularly in Africa and the Gulf.[15][20] Later accounts credited his Foreign Ministry outreach with helping lay groundwork for normalization agreements.[20] Netanyahu credited Gold with contributing to the Abraham Accords.[2] Gold described the 2020 normalization agreements between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and other Arab nations as “a turning point in the Middle East.”[9] A memorial from his institute characterized him as one of those who laid the groundwork for the accords and credited his ministry work with strengthening African and Gulf relationships.[21]

Gold also organized international efforts seeking to hold Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accountable for incitement to genocide, citing threats against Israel.[9] In 2006, he organized a New York conference involving Alan Dershowitz and former U.S. ambassador John Bolton.[9] A 2007 conference at the British House of Commons drew more than sixty members of Parliament who called for Ahmadinejad’s indictment.[9] Gold subsequently co-organized a 2008 Washington event with the International Association of Genocide Scholars.[9]

He received the 2020 Bonei Zion Prize for Global Impact.[22] He had testified before congressional bodies on Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, and Israel’s right to defensible borders.[22] Three of his books were described as New York Times bestsellers.[22]

Gold died on March 3, 2025, aged seventy-one.[2] He was survived by his wife, Ofra, their two children, and six grandchildren.[2]

Gold publicly defended Israel’s decision to boycott the investigation associated with the Goldstone report and debated Justice Richard Goldstone in 2009.[22][23] At a Brandeis University forum, he challenged the investigation’s purpose, saying: “This was a fixed fact-finding mission. It wasn't looking for the truth.”[23] His remarks formed part of the wider dispute over the report and a subsequent UN General Assembly resolution calling on Israel and the Palestinian side to investigate its allegations.[23] At a UN Watch rally on March 18, 2019, he likewise criticized what he regarded as persistent anti-Israel bias within UN bodies.[24]

A later Jerusalem Center memorial presented Gold as an advocate of “defensible borders,” including Israeli control of the Jordan Rift Valley and the hill ridge of Judea and Samaria.[7] It credited him with pressing Sharon to secure language on defensible borders in President George W. Bush’s April 14, 2004 letter, which it interpreted as recognizing Israel’s security needs in connection with withdrawal from Gaza.[7] These descriptions of his influence are the center’s retrospective assessments.[7]

Accounts of other diplomatic interventions also rest on retrospective interpretation: journalist Charles Enderlin credited Gold with obtaining American assurances that Yitzhak Rabin’s earlier “deposit” on the Golan Heights would not bind Israel and with renewing the weight accorded to President Gerald Ford’s 1975 letter on Israel retaining the Golan.[4] His 2016 resignation also prompted differing explanations: Gold cited personal reasons, while unnamed ministry sources described frustration over exclusion from core foreign-policy matters.[13] These accounts do not replace his stated explanation for leaving office.[13]