Golda Meir
Golda Meir | |
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Term of office March 17, 1969 - June 3, 1974 | |
Political party | [[Mapai Labour Party (Israel)]] |
Preceded by | Yigal Allon |
Succeeded by | Yitzhak Rabin |
Born | May 3, 1898 Kyiv |
Died | December 8, 1978 Jerusalem |
Religion | Atheism |
Golda Meir (1898-1978) was one of the founders of the State of Israel and served as its fourth Prime Minister from 1969 to 1974.
She is famous for her quote “We will have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us,” a statement that made reference to the casualties that the Arabs would suffer while trying to make incursions into Israel and from Israeli reprisals.
Biography
She was born in Ukraine, but her family soon emigrated to the United States. Golda became an ardent Zionist at an early age and moved to Israel with her husband in the 1920s well before it became a nation in its own right. It was under British rule at the time due to the Ottoman Empire losing World War I and being forced to give up the land. She spent her life in service to the dream of a Jewish state and in service to it once the nation of Israel became a reality. She held many positions during her lifetime such as the Minister of Labor, Foreign Minister, and then as the fourth Prime Minister of Israel in her 70s. Her term in office included the massacre of Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich olympics and the Yom Kippur War the following year. The war stunned the nation wherefore Meir could form a new government coalition only with great difficulty and decided to resign on April 10, 1974.[1]