GOVERNMENT

Ron Dermer

Israeli ambassador to the United States

Nicknamed “Bibi’s Brain” by the press, Israeli ambassador to the US Ron Dermer may be Prime Minister Netanyahu’s closest and most trusted adviser.

As Israeli journalist Ari Shavit put it, “Netanyahu is probably the loneliest head of state one can imagine. There are very few people he truly trusts and appreciates, and Ron Dermer is one of them.”

Son of a former mayor of Miami Beach, Dermer made aliyah in the 1990s and entered politics as an aide to Natan Sharansky. After Netanyahu fell from power for the first time in 1999, Dermer met the former and future prime minister and “we hit it off right away.”

Dermer served as one of the architects of Netanyahu’s return to the prime minister’s office in 2009 and eventually became Israel’s ambassador to the US in 2013. As ambassador, Dermer helped manage a major crisis when Netanyahu spoke to Congress in a bid to stop the nuclear deal with Iran.

Now close to the inner circles of the Trump administration, Dermer is poised to be a major power broker in both Israel and America. (Photo credit: Twitter.)