Golda Meir - Israel's Iron Lady

גּוֹלְדָּה מֵאִיר

Meir served as the Minister of Labor, Foreign Minister, and as the fourth Prime Minister of Israel from March 17, 1969 to June 3, 1974. Golda Meir was known as the "Iron Lady" of Israeli politics years before the epithet became associated with Margaret Thatcher. David Ben-Gurion once described her as "the only man in the Cabinet." She is the first female Prime Minister of Israel, and was the third female Prime Minister in the world.

Golda Meir was one of twenty-four people (and one of two women) who signed the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948. She later recalled, "After I signed, I cried. When I studied American history as a schoolgirl and I read about those who signed the Declaration of Independence, I couldn't imagine these were real people doing something real. And there I was sitting down and signing a declaration of independence."

The following day, Israel was attacked by joint forces from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan and Iraq. Golda was issued Israel's first passport and went to the United States to raise money for the fledgling nation.

When she returned, she was assigned to be the first ambassador to the Soviet Union. She served there briefly, leaving in 1949. During her stay in Moscow, she attended high holiday services and was mobbed by thousands of Russian Jews chanting her name; Stalin's repression of Jewish identity in the Soviet Union made many observers wonder whether there was still a strong sense of community but the crowd's welcoming treatment provided the answer. The picture on the back of Meir's Israeli Shekel banknote is that of the crowd in Moscow surrounding her and lifting her in happiness. She then entered the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) where she served continuously until 1974.

-from Wikipedia-

Quotes from Golda Meir:

• Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.
  
  
• There were no such thing as Palestinians. When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either southern Syria before the First World War, and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist. - The Washington Post (June 16, 1969)
  
  
  
• We don’t thrive on military acts. We do them because we have to, and thank God we are efficient. - Vogue (July 69)
  
  
  
• We have always said that in our war with the Arabs we had a secret weapon — no alternative. - LIFE magazine (3 October 1969)
  
  
• The Egyptians could run to Egypt, the Syrians into Syria. The only place we could run was into the sea, and before we did that we might as well fight. - LIFE magazine (3 October 1969)
  
  
• Arab sovereignty in Jerusalem just cannot be. This city will not be divided—not half and half, not 60-40, not 75-25, nothing. - TIME (19 February 1973)
  
  
• Let me tell you something that we Israelis have against Moses. He took us 40 years through the desert in order to bring us to the one spot in the Middle East that has no oil!
  
  
• America is a great country. It has many shortcomings, many social inequalities, and it’s tragic that the problem of the blacks wasn’t solved fifty or even a hundred years ago, but it’s still a great country, a country full of opportunities, of freedom! Does it seem nothing to you to be able to say what you like, even against the government, the Establishment?
  
  
• We can forgive you for killing our sons. But we will never forgive you for making us kill yours.