Golda Meir

Overview

Golda Meir was an Israeli stateswoman whose career spanned the founding of Israel, its early diplomacy and two wars during her premiership. Raised partly in Milwaukee, she emigrated to the Land of Israel in 1921 and became a leader of its Jewish labor movement. She was one of two women who signed Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948. After serving in the first governments of the new state, she became foreign minister and then, following Levi Eshkol’s death in 1969, Israel’s first woman prime minister. She led Israel’s fourteenth government and remained in office until 1974.

Meir’s premiership combined demands for secure borders and direct negotiations with Arab leaders with decisions made under severe military pressure. Her national unity coalition faced Egypt in the War of Attrition and accepted a United States ceasefire initiative in 1970. In 1972, the Black September terrorist organization attacked Israel’s Olympic team at Munich. In October 1973, Egypt and Syria launched a coordinated assault on Yom Kippur. Israel recovered from the initial attack, but failures in assessing its likelihood shattered public confidence in the country’s political and military leadership. Meir resigned in 1974, even as she pursued contact with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat about peace.

Early life

Meir was born in Kyiv in 1898. Economic hardship led her family to emigrate to the United States in 1906 and settle in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her American upbringing later helped her communicate with United States leaders and Jewish communities there. As a student, she joined Poalei Zion, a Jewish labor movement committed to the Jewish people’s return to their historic homeland. She married Morris Myerson, and the couple emigrated to the Land of Israel in 1921. They initially lived at Kibbutz Merhavya.

In 1924, Meir moved to Jerusalem and began work with the Histadrut labor federation. She later held a managerial position with its construction enterprise, Solel Boneh. From 1932 to 1934, she worked in the United States as an emissary and served as secretary of a women’s organization associated with HeHalutz. She went on to hold senior posts in the Histadrut. These positions gave her experience in labor organization, fundraising and political representation before Israel became independent.

When British authorities imprisoned much of the Jewish community’s senior leadership in 1946, Meir took over the Jewish Agency’s Political Department from Moshe Sharett. She represented the community in dealings with British officials and raised funds in the United States during the struggle for independence. Days before the declaration of the state, David Ben-Gurion sent her to meet King Abdullah of Jordan in an effort to prevent his army from joining an attack. The mission failed: Abdullah had decided to invade after the British departure. Meir’s assignment showed the trust placed in her at a decisive moment.

Career

On May 14, 1948, Meir signed Israel’s declaration of independence. Her signature placed her among the founders who assumed responsibility for establishing the state as the British Mandate ended and neighboring Arab armies prepared to attack. Later that year, she became Israel’s first diplomatic representative in Moscow. In September 1948, thousands of Soviet Jews gathered around her near the Moscow Choral Synagogue during Rosh Hashanah. The gathering expressed a national connection that Soviet rule had not erased. Together with Israel’s later Law of Return, that connection and the prospect of Jewish emigration threatened Stalin’s effort to control Soviet Jewish life.

Meir entered the Knesset as a Mapai member in 1949 and served as minister of labor and national insurance until 1956. Her portfolio concerned employment, housing and the absorption of immigrants in a young state receiving large numbers of Jews. In 1956, she became foreign minister, remaining in that post until 1966. She worked to strengthen ties with the United States, build relations with newly independent African countries and develop contacts in Latin America. Israel’s international standing, its access to vital waterways and its ability to defend itself were recurring subjects of her diplomacy.

As foreign minister, Meir addressed threats to Israel before the United Nations in December 1956. In January 1957, she spoke there about Aqaba, Sinai and Gaza; in October 1957, she affirmed Israel’s commitment to peace. Egypt’s blockade of the Suez Canal remained a central issue. On September 24, 1959, she challenged the continuing blockade before the UN General Assembly, defending free passage for Israeli shipping. She returned to the issue in a December 1959 Knesset address. For Meir, passage through an international waterway was a practical matter of commerce and a test of whether agreements concerning Israel would be honored.

United States–Israel relations required sustained attention. Meir met President John F. Kennedy on December 27, 1962. A National Security Council memorandum prepared before their meeting urged Kennedy to seek greater Israeli reciprocity for American aid, cooperation on an effort concerning Arab refugees and support for United Nations peacekeeping. The memorandum illustrates the range of issues in the relationship; Meir’s diplomacy sought to preserve American support while defending decisions she considered necessary for Israel’s security.

After leaving the foreign ministry, Meir served as secretary-general of Mapai and then became head of the newly formed Labor Party in 1969. Prime Minister Levi Eshkol died in February of that year, and Meir was chosen to succeed him. She took office in March as Israel’s first woman prime minister. Her government included former opposition parties and figures from Gahal, Herut and Rafi. She maintained that national unity coalition ahead of the October 1969 election and formed another government afterward with largely the same political partners.

Coalition breadth did not eliminate disagreement over diplomacy and security. During the War of Attrition, Egyptian attacks and Israeli responses along the Suez Canal demanded continuing military decisions. Meir’s government accepted the American peace and ceasefire initiative known as the Rogers Plan on August 4, 1970. Menachem Begin and 26 Knesset members then left the coalition. Meir continued to govern with a reduced but substantial majority of 85 members. Before her September 1970 visit to the United States, Yigal Allon gave her a revised territorial proposal with maps, reflecting continuing debate within her own camp over future borders and defensible arrangements.

Her government also considered how to administer Gaza and Judea and Samaria after the 1967 war. On March 27, 1972, minister Israel Galili sent her proposals addressing governance and the needs of Arab residents there. Such proposals formed part of a wider argument about security, civil administration and the terms of any eventual agreement with neighboring states. Meir insisted that peace required arrangements Israel could defend, while remaining willing to discuss territorial compromise and practical improvements in residents’ lives.

Ideology and statements

Meir’s politics grew out of the Jewish labor movement and Zionism, the national movement of the Jewish people for self-determination in their historical homeland, the Land of Israel. She saw the state’s survival and its capacity to receive Jews from abroad as responsibilities of government. Her 1948 reception by Soviet Jews gave visible expression to the connection between a dispersed Jewish community and Israel. During the 1970s, she helped secure the release of 200,000 Soviet Jews, contributing to a major wave of immigration to Israel. That work remained a significant part of her record beyond the wars associated with her premiership.

Meir argued for direct negotiation with Arab leaders. In July 1972, she appealed publicly to Egyptian President Sadat to open talks with Israel. Her position joined readiness for peace to a demand for borders that would allow Israelis to defend themselves. After the 1973 war, she welcomed Sadat’s proposal for an indirect dialogue through United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Her record therefore includes both firm opposition to measures she judged unsafe and repeated invitations to negotiate.

Meir’s statements about identities and travel documents under British rule have sometimes been taken out of context to deny Israel’s existence or Jewish self-determination. Her discussion concerned how Jews and Arabs were identified during that period. It did not undo the Jewish people’s historical connection to the land or Israel’s establishment in 1948. Her own life, from emigration to the signing of the declaration of independence, was devoted to making Jewish self-determination a political reality.

Role in attacks or conflicts

Meir governed during sustained confrontation with Egypt along the Suez Canal in the War of Attrition. Fighting imposed costs on both countries while American diplomacy sought a ceasefire. Her acceptance of the Rogers Plan in 1970 brought a coalition rupture, demonstrating how difficult it was to reconcile differing views about security and negotiations within a national unity government. Even after Begin’s departure, Meir retained enough parliamentary support to govern and continued to engage the United States over military and diplomatic questions.

In 1972, Black September attacked Israel’s Olympic team at Munich, killing 11 Israelis. The Munich massacre brought the protection of Israelis abroad to the center of Meir’s premiership. Her government responded by pursuing members and organizers of Black September through Israeli intelligence operations. Its response reflected the judgment that those responsible for attacks on Israelis could not assume safety after crossing borders. Black September also made failed attempts to assassinate Meir. The Munich attack and Israel’s subsequent actions became enduring subjects of debate over counterterrorism, state responsibility and the use of force.

During 1973, Meir weighed conflicting signals about the likelihood of another war. In February, she told a Knesset committee that available information did not indicate Soviet encouragement for an Egyptian attack. President Richard Nixon warned her on March 1 against treating United States–Soviet détente as a reason to reduce security spending. In May, she met King Hussein of Jordan and discussed Soviet influence on prospects for peace. Before the war, she also rejected Senator Joe Biden’s suggestion that Israel withdraw from areas he regarded as less important to its security. These exchanges show how military assessments, great-power diplomacy and questions of defensible borders converged in her decisions.

On October 6, 1973, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel on Yom Kippur. Egyptian forces crossed the Suez Canal, while Syrian forces attacked Israel in the Golan Heights, part of the State of Israel and of the historic region of Bashan, most of which lies in Syria and is today occupied by Syria. Meir led the government during the ensuing Yom Kippur War. Israeli forces recovered from the initial blows, but the surprise exposed serious failures in the assessment of Egyptian and Syrian intentions and in military preparedness. Meir and her ministers had to manage the fighting, relations with the United States and decisions about a ceasefire at the same time.

United States support was crucial to wartime diplomacy. Kissinger told Meir that the United States would favor an Israeli air attack on Syrian forces. As the fighting developed, Israel accepted a ceasefire proposal advanced by Washington and Moscow. Meir explained that decision to the Knesset on October 23, while insisting that implementation depended on reciprocal compliance. Fighting continued around the stated ceasefire deadline. The government’s decisions helped bring the war toward an end, but military recovery did not restore the confidence lost during its opening days.

Public anger over the failures preceding the attack damaged trust in Meir’s political and military leadership. An Israeli inquiry identified serious errors in the assessment of Arab intentions. Meir’s authority over ministers weakened after the war, and electoral victory at the end of 1973 did not settle demands for accountability. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan and Meir left office in 1974. Shimon Peres succeeded Dayan as defense minister after briefly serving as information minister in Meir’s government.

Even amid the postwar crisis, Meir pursued an opening toward peace. On January 16, 1974, Sadat sent her a message through Kissinger proposing that they conduct a dialogue through him. On January 18, Meir replied that she hoped the contact would build trust and advance peace between their peoples. The exchange did not erase the failures that had preceded the war. It did establish that leaders who had recently fought one another were prepared to discuss a different future. Meir’s earlier appeal for negotiations in 1972 and her response to Sadat in 1974 form a consistent record of seeking talks with Egypt while defending Israel’s security.

Death or current status

Meir resigned as prime minister in 1974 and was succeeded by Yitzhak Rabin. She remained a prominent public figure. When Sadat visited Israel in November 1977, she addressed him in the Knesset, praised the courage of his visit and expressed hope for peace. Their meeting gave a public form to the contact she had welcomed in 1974. Meir died on December 8, 1978, and was buried on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. In a statement after her death, President Jimmy Carter recalled both her years in Milwaukee and her long public service to Israel.

Legacy

Meir’s career connects Israel’s founding generation to the pressures of governing an established state. She helped organize Jewish public life before independence, signed the declaration in 1948, represented Israel before the Soviet Union and defended its interests as foreign minister. As prime minister, she became a landmark figure in women’s political leadership. Her efforts on behalf of Soviet Jews helped bring many to Israel and affirmed a bond that Soviet authorities had tried to suppress.

Assessment of her premiership also turns on the Yom Kippur War. Israel survived and reversed the initial Egyptian and Syrian advances, yet the surprise attack revealed grave failures for which the government faced public scrutiny. Her resignation remains part of that history of accountability. Munich demonstrated the threat posed by attacks on Israelis abroad, while her contacts with Sadat showed that resistance to violence and pursuit of peace could coexist in her policy. The agreement between Israel and Egypt came after her death, but her 1972 invitation to negotiate, her 1974 exchange through Kissinger and her welcome to Sadat in 1977 remain part of the path toward it.