Golda Meir

{{Audio|He-Golda_Meir.ogg|Golda Meir}} (Hebrew ?????????? ??????) (b. Golda Mabovitz; May 3, 1898 – December 8, 1978) was a founder of the State of Israel. She served as the Minister of Labor, Foreign Minister, and as the fourth Prime Minister of Israel from March 17, 1969 to April 111974. Golda Meir was the "Iron Lady" of Israeli politics years before the epithet was coined for Margaret Thatcher. David Ben-Gurion once described her as "the only man in the Cabinet." She is the first (and to date only) female Prime Minister of Israel, the third female Prime Minister in the world (after Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka and Indira Gandhi of India) , as well as the only former American citizen to hold the post (Benjamin Netanyahu is a native-born Israeli whose family moved to Philadelphia when he was a teenager; he moved back to Israel after graduate school and was never a U.S. citizen).

Government posts

From 1949 to 1956, she was also the Israeli Minister of Labor. In 1956, she became Foreign Minister. While she was the Foreign Minister, David Ben-Gurion was the Prime Minister. He asked Golda to change her name to a Hebrew name. She chose Meir, meaning "to burn brightly".

Related Topics:
1956 - David Ben-Gurion - Prime Minister - Hebrew

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In 1965, she resigned from the Cabinet citing illness and exhaustion of her years of service. At first, she returned to her modest life. But she was soon called back into service. She served as Secretary General of the Labor Party for eight months and retired again on August 1, 1968.

Related Topics:
1965 - Labor Party - August 1 - 1968

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After Levi Eshkol died suddenly on February 26, 1969, the party chose her to succeed him as Prime Minister. She came out of retirement to take office on March 17 and served in that role till 1974. Her government was clouded by internal squabbles among the governing coalition, and serious questions over strategic misjudgments and general lack of leadership that resulted in the unanticipated Yom Kippur War. On April 11 1974, Golda Meir resigned leadership, to be succeeded by Yitzhak Rabin.

Related Topics:
Levi Eshkol - February 26 - 1969 - March 17 - 1974 - Yom Kippur War - April 11 - Yitzhak Rabin

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When Golda Meir became prime minister, Israel was brimming with confidence, having defeated the Arab aggressors in the 1967 war and captured large areas of territory. She saw no need to seek compromise with the Palestinians so long as Israel was secure, particularly considering their irredentism. As she herself put it: "Peace will come when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us."

Related Topics:
1967 - Palestinians

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Golda Meir died in Jerusalem, Israel of cancer at the age of 80, and was buried on Mount Herzl, in Jerusalem. She has subsequently been portrayed by actresses as diverse as the late Swede Ingrid Bergman and the Australian Judy Davis on television, and the Jewish-American Tovah Feldshuh on Broadway.

Related Topics:
Jerusalem, Israel - Mount Herzl - Ingrid Bergman - Judy Davis - Television - Jewish - Tovah Feldshuh - Broadway

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