Golda Meir

Goldie Mabovitch (who, as Golda Meir, will become the fourth prime minister of the State of Israel) has emerged as a forceful spokesperson for the Zionist cause in negotiating with the British mandatory authorities during the war.

Goldie's family had emigrated to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1906, where she attended the Milwaukee Normal School (now University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) and later became a leader in the Milwaukee Labor Zionist Party.

In 1921, she and her husband, Morris Myerson, had emigrated to Palestine and joined the MerPavya kibbutz.

She became the kibbutz's representative to the Histadrut, the secretary of that organization's Women's Labor Council, and a member of its executive committee.

Bevin responds with a crackdown on the Haganah and arrests many of its leaders, including Moshe Sharett, head of the Political Department of the Jewish Agency.

Goldie Myerson (not yet Golda Meir) provisionally replaces him and works for the release of her comrades and the many Jewish war refugees who had violated British immigration regulations by settling in Palestine.

While the British concentrate their efforts on the Haganah, the Irgun and Lehi carry out terrorist attacks against British forces.

The bulk of the Zionist movement—though not Begin's terrorist army, the Irgun, and LEHI (the Stern Group), commanded by Shamir—welcomes the partition proposal, which grants to Jews some fifty-five hundred square miles, mostly in the arid Negev, both because it recognizes a Jewish state and because it allots to it fifty-five percent of (west-of-Jordan) Palestine.

The Zionist General Council, although considering the UN plan defective in terms of its expectations from the League of Nations Mandate twenty-five years earlier, states its willingness in principle to accept partition.

Upon Sharett's release from several months of imprisonment, he takes up diplomatic duties, and Goldie Myerson (not yet Golda Meir) officially takes over his former position.

The creation of the State of Israel brings about the (first) Arab-Israeli war: early on May 15, units of the regular armies of Syria, Transjordan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Egypt cross the frontiers of Palestine.

Initially these forces consist of approximately eight thousand to ten thousand Egyptians, two thousand to four thousand Iraqis, four thousand to five thousand Transjordanians, three thousand to four thousand Syrians, one thousand to two thousand Lebanese, and smaller numbers of Saudi Arabian and Yemeni troops; about twenty-five thousand in all.

Goldie Myerson, a signatory of Israel's independence declaration and newly appointed minister to Moscow, had personally attempted to dissuade King Abdullah of Transjordan from joining the invasion of Israel decided on by other Arab states.

Israeli forces composed of the Haganah, such irregular units as the Irgun and the Stern Gang, and women's auxiliaries, number thirty-five thousand or more, armed with Czechoslovakian weapons sent at the behest of the Soviet Union.

Moshe Dayan commands the Jerusalem area; Yitzhak Rabin directs the defense of Jerusalem (and also fights the Egyptians in the Negev).

The invading Arab League forces occupy the areas in southern and eastern Palestine not apportioned to the Jews, then capture the small Jewish quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem.

The Israelis, meanwhile, win control of the main road to Jerusalem through the Yehuda Mountains (Judaean Hills) and successfully beat off Arab attacks.

The Arab League has fielded only a few well-trained units.

In addition, some Arab logistical lines are long, making resupply and communication difficult.

The most formidable Arab force is Transjordan's Arab Legion, commanded by Glubb Pasha, but Abdullah has secret relations with the Zionists and strongly opposes a Palestinian state led by his enemy al-Husseini.

Other states, such as Egypt and Iraq, also have different objectives, and this internal strife, disorganization, and military ineptitude prevents the Arabs from mounting a coordinated attack.

Abdullah's primary purpose, which he has spelled out in secret discussions with Jewish envoys, is to extend his rule to include the area allotted to the Palestinian Arabs under the United Nations partition resolution of November 1947.

Accordingly, he engages his forces in the area of Palestine popularly known as the West Bank and expels Jewish forces from East Jerusalem (the Old City).

Goldie Myerson, elected to the Knesset in 1949 and serving as minister of labor, has carried out major programs of housing and road construction and vigorously supported the policy of unrestricted Jewish immigration to Israel.

Appointed foreign minister in 1956, she Hebraizes her name to Golda Meir.

Golda Meir has promoted the Israeli policy of assistance to the new African states aimed at enhancing diplomatic support among uncommitted nations.

Shortly after retiring from the Foreign Ministry in January 1966, she becomes secretary general of the Mapai Party and supports Levi Eshkol in intra-party conflicts.

Eban, who had served as minister of education and culture under Ben-Gurion 1960 to 1963, and as deputy prime minister in 1964-65, replaces Meir as foreign minister, stepping down steps down as president of the Weizmann Institute of Science.

As foreign minister, he seeks to strengthen relations with the United States and to bring about Israeli association with the European Economic Community.

Compromise candidate Golda Meir becomes Israel's prime minister following the sudden death of Lvi Eshkol on February 26, 1969.

Nasser responds to the first deep penetration into Egypt by Israeli fighter-bombers in January 1970 by going to Moscow with a request for advanced surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and other military equipment.

After some wavering, the Kremlin commits itself to modernizing and retraining the Egyptian military.

Israel, given the wide disparity in the populations of Israel and Egypt, cannot long tolerate trading casualties with the Egyptians.

The Israeli government, now led by Golda Meir, initiates a policy of "asymmetrical response"—retaliation on a scale far exceeding any individual attack.

Golda Meir's gamble has succeeded: Israel's willingness to risk confrontation, even with Soviet pilots along the canal, has strengthened relations with the United States.