Golda Meir and Arab-Israeli Relations 35 Years after the Yom Kippur War Pierre M. Atlas, Ph.D. Marian College 29 October 2008

Golda Meir (1898-1978) - Born in Kiev, came to US in 1906 Grew up in Milwaukee Joined Zionist movement, 1915 Married Morris Meyerson, 1917 Moved to Palestine kibbutz, 1921 Secretly traveled to Transjordan, dressed as an Arab woman, and met King Abdullah, 10 May 1948 - Israel’s first ambassador to USSR, 1949 - Foreign Minister, 1956-1966 - Prime Minister of Israel, 1969-1974

Golda Meir (1898-1978)

- Born in Kiev, came to US in 1906

Grew up in Milwaukee

Joined Zionist movement, 1915

Married Morris Meyerson, 1917

Moved to Palestine kibbutz, 1921

Secretly traveled to Transjordan, dressed as an Arab woman, and met King Abdullah, 10 May 1948

- Israel’s first ambassador to USSR, 1949

- Foreign Minister, 1956-1966

- Prime Minister of Israel, 1969-1974

Golda Meir signing Israel’s Proclamation of Independence, 14 May 1948

“ The State of Israel! My eyes filled with tears, and my hands shook. We had done it. We had brought the Jewish state into existence….From this day on we would no longer live on sufferance in the land of our forefathers. Now we were a nation like other nations, master—for the first time in twenty centuries—of our own destiny. The dream had come true—too late to save those who had perished in the Holocaust, but not too late for the generations to come” --Golda Meir, on Israel’s Declaration of Independence of 14 May 1948. From her autobiography My Life (1975)

“ The State of Israel! My eyes filled with tears, and my hands shook. We had done it. We had brought the Jewish state into existence….From this day on we would no longer live on sufferance in the land of our forefathers. Now we were a nation like other nations, master—for the first time in twenty centuries—of our own destiny. The dream had come true—too late to save those who had perished in the Holocaust, but not too late for the generations to come”

--Golda Meir, on Israel’s Declaration of Independence

of 14 May 1948. From her autobiography My Life (1975)

“ There were no such thing as Palestinians. When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either southern Syria before the First World War, and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.” --Golda Meir, interview in the Sunday Times (London), 15 June 1969

“ There were no such thing as Palestinians. When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either southern Syria before the First World War, and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.”

--Golda Meir, interview in the Sunday Times (London), 15 June 1969

Israel and territories conquered and occupied after the June 1967 Six Day War From Syria: Golan Heights From Egypt: Sinai and Gaza Strip From Jordan: West Bank and East Jerusalem

Presidents Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Hafiz al-Asad of Syria

Sadat and his generals

“ The Crossing”

8 October 1973: Israeli tank unit forming for counterattack on the Golan Heights. The attack was repelled by the Syrians

Nuclear reactor at Dimona, Israel

Israel Air Force F-4 Phantoms

C-5A Galaxy transports (as used in 1973 airlift to Israel) (Note: this photo is not from 1973 war)

Israeli tanks in the Sinai

Defense Minister Moshe Dayan and Gen. Ariel Sharon on the west bank of the Suez Canal, 18 October 1973

Egyptian and Israeli officers at Kilometer 101

Golda, Nixon, Kissinger, and Simcha Dinitz (upper left), in Washington, 1 November 1973

Aftermath of the 1973 War: Separation of Forces, Disengagement, Negotiation, and Peace

US-brokered Disengagement Agreements 1974: Golan Heights (Israel and Syria) 1975: Sinai (Israel and Egypt)

Sadat and Golda during his visit to Jerusalem, 19 November 1977 Golda, Sadat, and Shimon Peres

Signing of the Camp David Peace Accords, Washington, 26 March 1979

Sadat, minutes before his assassination, 6 October 1981 “ The Last Smile” Photo by Bill Foley

Signing of Oslo Accords, 13 September 1993

Israel-Jordan peace treaty 26 October 1994

Tzipi Livni Foreign Minister and leader of Kadima Party If Kadima wins the most seats in the next national elections (probably in February 2009), Livni would become Israel’s second female prime minister Foreign Minister Livni, with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Jerusalem, November 2007)

Tzipi Livni with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, 24 January 2008 Thirty-nine years after Golda Meir said “there were no such thing as Palestinians”

See Golda’s Balcony Show Dates : October 31-November 16, 2008 Show Times : Thursday, 7p.m. Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m., Sunday, 2 p.m .