Golda Meir: Israel’s ‘Iron Lady’ and Palestinians' worst nightmare

Mandatory Palestine, 1921

This was where she met her future husband, Morris Meyerson — a painter and socialist. They married in 1917— the same year the Balfour Declaration was passed — and moved to mandatory Palestine in 1921, at her urging, to be close to her lifelong ambition of establishing the state of Israel.  

They settled at a kibbutz in Marj Ibn Amer (now the Jezreel Valley) before moving first to Tel Aviv and then to Jerusalem. In 1928, she was elected secretary-general of the Working Women's Council — a Jewish organisation that sent her back to the US as an emissary for two years.

In 1934, she joined the executive committee of Histadrut, the Jewish community's labour union (now the General Organisation of Workers in Israel), becoming head of its political department. By 1946, had also become acting head of the political department at the Jewish Agency and a ranking figure in the World Zionist Organisation.

When head of the Jewish Agency Moshe Sharett went to the US to lobby American congressmen for the Palestine Partition Plan in 1947, Meir stayed back in Palestine, in complete control of the Jewish Agency's political department.

Secret meeting in Jordan

Less than two weeks before the Partition Plan was issued, Meir met secretly with King Abdullah of Jordan, who tried talking her into delaying the creation of Israel.

"Don't be in a hurry," he said, warning that emotions were souring throughout the Arab world.

She snapped back: "We have been waiting for 2,000 years! Is that hurrying?" She then proposed accepting Jordanian control of the West Bank if the king agreed to stay out of areas allocated to Israel in the Partition Plan.

During the 1948 war itself, known to the Arabs as the Nakba, Meir returned to the US and was active in fundraising both for the new state and its army, thanks to her oratory skills and flawless English.

The Jewish Agency had aimed for $7-8mn from American Jews — Meir raised over $30mn. Israel's founding premier, David Ben Gurion, would later write that she was the woman who "got the money which made the state possible."

Meir was one of the 24 signatories of Israel's Declaration of Independence four days later. She would describe the moment by saying: "After I signed, I cried," comparing herself to the United States' Founding Fathers.

In the new state, the political department of the Jewish Agency became the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its leader, Moshe Sharett, became Israel's first foreign minister.

At this point, Meir left for the US again, raising another $50mn in mid-1948. This time, she travelled on a newly issued Israeli passport.

On 2 September 1948, Sharett appointed her as Israel's first ambassador to the USSR (minister plenipotentiary). She hated the job and considered it a form of banishment. Meir spoke no Russian, abhorred diplomatic protocol, and enjoyed none of the wining and dining of the diplomatic community in Moscow. She was dying to be back home and talked Sharett into recalling her on 10 March 1949.

Political ascent

One year later, she won a seat at the Knesset and was appointed labour minister under David Ben Gurion. Meir and Ben Gurion were good friends, and he would often describe her as the "only man" in his government — a statement that might have offended other women, but which Golda Meir found highly flattering.

Ben Gurion had initially proposed making her deputy premier, which she rejected, finding its responsibilities vague and too ceremonial for her political appetite. As labour minister, she oversaw major housing and road construction, vigorously supporting unrestricted Jewish emigration to Israel from all four corners of the globe.

In 1955, she ran for the position of major of Tel Aviv but lost by two votes due to hardline religious Jews having difficulty digesting a woman mayor.

That October, Ben Gurion named her foreign minister, replacing her former boss Moshe Sharett. This was when she changed her name from "Meyerson" (her husband's family) to "Meir," in line with other Jewish leaders taking on Hebrew surnames. 

She would hold this position for the next ten years, overseeing the Suez War with Egypt in 1956, before stepping down after being diagnosed with lymphoma cancer in January 1966.

Unexpected twist of fate

Her career took a quiet turn over the next three years, as she settled for a family life, preparing to become a grandmother.

Then came the sudden death of Prime Minister Levi Eshkol in February 1969. An election was held to replace him, and her party, Mapai (the workers' party that would soon merge with two others to form the Labour Party), nominated her to replace Eshkol, after electing her as their chair on 7 March 1969.

She won the election and, at 71, became Israel's first woman prime minister, maintaining Eshkol's unity government while drawing international parallels between her and her powerful Indian counterpart, Indira Gandhi.

Meir travelled the world to promote her country, making headlines with her simple dress, warm disposition, and complete abandonment of formalities, travelling economy class and entertaining guests at her home kitchen in Tel Aviv, wearing an apron while breaking into impassioned monologues about her vision for Israel's future.

In Jerusalem, she would receive guests at a two-floor villa confiscated by the Israeli government from a Palestinian notable named Hanna Bisharat.

In June 1969, she would make her landmark statement: "There is no such thing as Palestinians."

She fought a War of Attrition against President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, and then, vowed to bring down his successor, Anwar Sadat.

String of assassinations

She also authorised a series of target assassinations by the Mossad against ranking Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) members.

This came after the 1972 attack by the Black September Organisation, which killed 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Summer Olympics. Black September was actually planning to assassinate Golda Meir during her trip to New York City on 4 March 1973. She promised to strike first, creating Committee X to take down her enemies, with herself at the helm.

Codenamed Operation Wrath of God, her revenge first struck down the PLO representative in Rome, assassinating Wael Zeiter on 16 October 1972. Less than two months later, Meir ordered the assassination of Mahmud al-Hamshari, Yasser Arafat's envoy to France, who was killed by a bomb planted underneath his home desk in Paris.

In January 1973, she struck Hussein al-Bashir, the Fateh representative in Cyprus, who was blown up at his hotel room in Nicosia.

However, the most famous of Golda Meir's operations was the one carried out in Lebanon in April 1973. Arriving on speedboats disguised as civilians, Israeli commandos attacked the homes of top Palestinian leaders Mohammad Yusuf al-Najjar, Kamal Adwan, and Kamal Nasser.

All of them were killed on Meir's orders.

The October War of 1973

The breaking point in her career was the October War of 1973, launched by Egypt's Sadat and Syria's new president, Hafez al-Assad. Despite reports that the Syrians were amassing troops on their side of the border, Meir's advisers told her not to worry, believing this was a bluff.

Sadat was fond of mobilising troops on his side of the border, putting Israel on high alert, and then withdrawing them. Probably, Meir thought that this was another of his tactics. She didn't mobilise her army, thinking that after the stunning defeat of 1967, the Arabs would not dare attack Israel again.

Defence Minister Moshe Dayan was telling her that the Arabs would not do it, and he continued to hold by this line up to six hours before the outbreak of hostilities.

On 6 October, she finally began to mobilise the army. Still, she rejected any pre-emptive strike against Syria and/or Egypt, not wanting to be seen as having triggered the war so as not to upset the Nixon Administration.

The early hours of the war took Meir and her staff completely by surprise, incurring heavy losses for the Israeli army. On the streets of Israel, she would be hissed and cursed by the families of dead Israeli soldiers, who accused her of incompetence, negligence, and not doing enough to protect their children.

A commission was appointed to investigate Meir's handling of the war, which concluded: "She decided wisely, with common sense and speedily, in favour of the full mobilisation of the reserves, as recommended by the chief-of-staff, despite weighty political considerations, thereby performing a most important service for the defence of the state."

Retirement and death

Meir resigned from the premiership on 11 April 1974 and from the Knesset on 7 June 1974, taking responsibility for what happened. She headed a caretaker cabinet until early that summer and then retired from politics to write her memoir, My Life, which became an instant New York Times Bestseller when published in 1975.

On 21 November 1977, she was invited to speak at the Knesset — in her capacity as head of the Labour Party — on the occasion of President Sadat's visit to Israel. This was the same man partially responsible for her political demise, yet she welcomed him as a "courageous peacemaker."

Twelve months later, she died of cancer in Jerusalem, on 8 December 1978, aged 80.