[4] Growing up, Dermer attended Rabbi Alexander S. Gross Hebrew Academy, a Jewish Day School in Miami Beach, with Shmuley Boteach.

[11] 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 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".

[18] 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".

"[8] On December 28, 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.

[8] 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.

[22] That same month, Israel achieved its top diplomatic priority when the Trump administration withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran.

[24] 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 light of his contribution to the Abraham Accords and the subsequent normalization agreements, Dermer was nominated, along with other key US officials, for the Nobel Peace Prize.

[33] 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.

In May 2015, two months after Netanyahu's dramatic speech to Congress mobilized opposition to the deal, Donald J. Trump announced his candidacy for president.

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.

[47] In December, 2022, following the 2022 Israeli legislative election, Dermer was chosen to head the Ministry of Strategic Affairs in the Thirty-seventh government of Israel.

On the other hand, Israeli journalist Barak Ravid said, that “among the White House’s inner circle – Denis McDonough, Ben Rhodes – Dermer [was] a red flag” because he was believed to have “incited Congress and Jewish organizations against Obama” on issues related to the Palestinians and Iran.

[52] Also in 2015, Dermer received negative press coverage for his “politically charged” choice of holiday gifts which featured products from the West Bank and the Golan Heights.

The SPLC encouraged Dermer to decline the award because it "not only further legitimizes this organization, but could be read as an endorsement of anti-Muslim hate by the Israeli government.

[60] After the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, an article in The Intercept claimed Netanyahu had tasked Dermer with designing plans to “thin” the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip “to a minimum,” the plan having two main elements: The first would use the pressure of the war and humanitarian crisis to persuade Egypt to allow refugees to flow to other Arab countries, and the second would open up sea routes so that Israel “allows a mass escape to European and African countries.”[61] In 1996 he moved to Israel,[62] and in 1997, he began the process of becoming an Israeli citizen.

[63][64] In December, 2000, Dermer was introduced by Chief Justice Aharon Barak to Rhoda Pagano, a Yale University educated lawyer who was clerking at the time at the Israeli Supreme Court.