Dore Gold died at 71 – American political scientist

Biography and cause of death of Dore Gold

Dore Gold A political scientist and diplomat of American and Israeli descent, Isidor “Dore” Gold was the Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations from 1997 to 1999. His birth name was איזידור “דורי” ג֕לד. He passed away on 3 March 2025. At the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, he serves as president at present. During his time in politics, he also served as an adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

He was appointed to the post of Director-General of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs in May 2015 by Netanyahu and remained in that role until October 2016.

Dore Gold’s Earlier years

Dore Gold was brought up in a Conservative Jewish household after being born on July 25, 1953, in Hartford, Connecticut, USA. He received his early schooling at Hartford’s Orthodox Yeshiva. Gold went to Columbia University in the 1970s after graduating from Northfield Mount Hermon School in 1971. Gold received a Bachelor of Arts, Master of Arts, and Doctor of Philosophy degree in political science, with a concentration in Middle Eastern studies.

He earned a master’s degree in international law and a doctorate in literary Arabic; his research focused on Saudi Arabia. His New York Times bestseller Hatred’s Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism, published in 2003, was based on this data. According to Gold’s claims in the book, Saudi Arabia is one of the main terrorist funding organizations, as it backs anti-American groups and attacks American friends.

Dore Gold passed away on March 3, 2025, when he was 71 years old.

Dore Gold’s Political career

In 1985, while working as a senior research associate at the Moshe Dayan Centre for Near East Studies at Tel Aviv University, Dore Gold started her political career. In a subsequent appointment, he oversaw the United States Foreign and Defense Policy Project at Tel Aviv University’s Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies from 1985 to 1996.

When the Israelis went to the Madrid Peace Conference in 1991, Gold was there to advise them. Dore Gold advised Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, on foreign policy from June 1996 until June 1997.

The first representatives of the newly elected Likud administration to meet with Yasser Arafat in the Gaza Strip on June 27, 1996, were Gold and Netanyahu adviser Yitzhak Molcho, according to Barry Rubin and Judith Colp Rubin. Dennis Ross brings up the subsequent “Abu-Mazen-Dore Gold” negotiations, which led to the Palestinians’ closure of offices in East Jerusalem, which Israel had said was a breach of the Oslo Accords.

In addition, Gold was able to have Secretary of State Warren Christopher affirm in 1996 that the Rabin “deposit” on the Golan Heights’ future did not legally obligate Israel. Part of this endeavor also included getting the Clinton administration to recommit to the September 1975 Ford letter, in which the US promised to give Israel’s continued presence on the Golan Heights a lot of weight. This reaffirmed commitment was sent to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an official letter of assurance dated September 19, 1996.

Dore Gold was reappointed to assist Netanyahu in December 2013, with responsibilities including Iran strategy and Israel’s relations with the US and UN.

The nomination of Gold as Director-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was announced by Netanyahu on May 25, 2015, subject to the approval of the cabinet. Gold stepped down as Director-General on October 13, 2016, citing personal reasons.

Dore Gold Public Affairs Center in Jerusalem

The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs is a nonprofit organization that Gold has presided over since the year 2000. During the Aqaba Summit with President George W. Bush in 2003, Gold was a key advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon from 2001 to 2003. At this time, Gold was a frequent guest on many US network TV shows, including Meet the Press, The Today Show, CNN’s Late Edition, Fox and Friends, and others, representing the Sharon administration.

Regarding allegations that Saudi Arabia provided intellectual and financial backing for global terrorism, Gold appeared as an expert witness before the United States Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs in July 2003.

From 2006 onwards, Gold spearheaded a global initiative by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs to demand that the United Nations Security Council impose sanctions on Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for violating the anti-incitement provisions of the 1948 Genocide Convention through his recurrent rhetorical references to “wiping Israel off the map.”

At a meeting that took place on December 14, 2006, at the New York County Bar Association, in conjunction with the meeting of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Gold presided over a delegation. John Bolton, the US ambassador to the UN; Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz; and former Canadian justice minister Irwin Cotler were among the speakers. The conference received support from Senator Hillary Clinton, who submitted a letter.

On January 25, 2007, Gold escorted an Israeli delegation to a second meeting in the British House of Commons. Lord David Trimble presided over the gathering, which had the backing of both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party in Britain. Benjamin Netanyahu—Israel’s former prime minister—joined the Israeli squad. The initiative succeeded in getting sixty-plus House of Commons members to demand Ahmadinejad’s indictment.

On September 23, 2008, in Washington D.C., Gold and the International Association of Genocide Scholars hosted their third event. Salih Mahmoud Osman, a member of the Sudanese Parliament and an advocate for human rights in Darfur, and former US ambassador to the UN Richard Holbrooke were among the speakers at the third meeting.

• The Rise of Nuclear Iran: How Tehran Defies the West (Regnery, 2009).  ISBN 1-59698-571-2
• The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, the West, and the Future of the Holy City (ISBN 0786147849 / Publisher: Regnery, Blackstone Audiobooks / Date: Jan 2007)
• Tower of Babble: How the United Nations Has Fueled Global Chaos (Crown Forum, November 2004).  ISBN 1-4000-5475-3
• Hatred’s Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism (Regnery, 2003).  ISBN 0-89526-135-9
• American Military Strategy in the Middle East: The Implications of the US Regional Command Structure (CENTCOM) For Israel (Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense Publications), 1993.
• Israel as an American Non-NATO Ally: Parameters of Defense and Industrial Cooperation (Boulder: Westview Press), 1992.