] 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.
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)==