Golda Meir

Front matter

DE GRUYTER _ OLDENBOURG

Meron Medzini Golda Meir

Meron Medzini

Preface to the English edition

This book originally appeared in Hebrew in 1990 under the name The Proud Jewess—Golda Meir and the Vision of Israel. Published twelve years after her death, it was based on sources that were available until the late 1980’s. In those days many controversial and delicate items were still subject to censorship. Israel’s population at the time numbered some five million souls. It was clear that there was a lack of a broad historic perspective to evaluate properly the life and work of Golda Meir as a major figure that was the product of the Jewish community in Palestine during the Mandatory era and later the State of Israel. The first Hebrew version was an attempt to portray the character of this amazing personality that at the time seemed to have been forgotten in Israel, although less abroad where she remained as a much better known figure.

Thirty years after her death and some twenty years after the appearance of the first version of this biography, my publisher thought the time had come to update the original biography with newly published and opened sources that were unavailable earlier. Many diplomatic and military documents that were hidden in archives in various countries were now opened. Israel’s population had grown to seven million, among them a million Russian Jews who immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union in the last decade of the twentieth century. Many of them showed much interest in this woman who lit the torch that led to the opening of the gates and to their immigration to Israel. Many of the younger generation that grew up in Israel since Golda died in 1978 wondered about her role in the recent history of the country, and specifically her responsibility for and her role during the Yom Kippur War, and asked whether what they heard of her was the full and final historic judgment. The second Hebrew version attempted to confront this major chapter in her life.

The younger generation that has grown up in Israel in the almost forty years after her death experienced leaders of another type, maybe some whose “ratings” were higher than hers, in their much better command of Hebrew, in their political and military experience. But it is not hard to argue that apart from Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin in his second term as prime minister and Ariel Sharon, none of her other successors surpassed her in leadership capability, in understanding of the international and regional realities and mainly in her honesty and integrity, her adherence to her principles and values, her stubbornness and her patience in sticking to her truth. In certain ways she reminds Israelis of another prime minister who in recent years is being more fully appreciated—Yitzhak Shamir (1915-2011). Perhaps Begin and Rabin had a greater vision than she, but this never detracted from her ability to lead Israel during five critical years in its history and to serve as the supreme commander during the Yom Kippur War.

DOI 10.1515/9783110492507-202, JBA] © 2008 Yediot Aharonot: Sifrehemed, published by De Gruyter Oldenbourg. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivs 3.0 License. For details go to http: //creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

VI — Preface to the English edition

Regrettably, many young Israelis display much ignorance regarding their past leaders. Ben-Gurion is an airport, Begin is a major highway in Jerusalem, there are Eshkol streets and neighborhoods in various places in Israel, a theater and opera performing center in Tel Aviv and a highway in Jerusalem are named after Golda. Their faces adorn Israel’s currency. When the first edition of the Hebrew version of this book was published it was intended to my four children and their generation. The second Hebrew edition was intended for them and my eight grandchildren so they should know who was Golda Meir, what she did and what was her place in their history of their land.

The English version will hopefully be read by two additional grandchildren in Israel and by their generation overseas. By now Israel’s population is over eight million people. Regrettably, some of Golda’s successors as prime ministers of Israel have been the subject of police investigations, one of them even went to prison in 2016 for corruption charges. This led many Israelis to wonder about the character of those who preceded the native-born Israeli prime ministers who happily were never interrogated by the Israeli police. This led to a growing interest in the founding fathers and one mother of Israel, both in Israel and overseas. Testimony to this claim lies in the growing number of biographies written in recent years in Israel and overseas on Ben-Gurion, Sharett, Eshkol, Rabin, Peres, Shamir, Barak, Sharon and even Netanyahu. One major biography was written on Golda in Hebrew and five in English, two even in French. This English version contains a great deal of new material from sources that appeared in the past twenty years as a result of the opening up of archives in Jerusalem, Washington, London, Paris and even Moscow.

It can be safely claimed that many of the earlier assessments of Golda that appeared in Israel were mostly negative. Now it can be argued that there is a new evaluation based on newly opened archives. It demonstrates that she wanted peace and did much to attain it, but she was always somber in her assessments. Even after the signing of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty in 1979, the Israel-Jordan peace treaty in 1994 and the Oslo Process that began in 1993, the recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the acceptance of the two-states principle, there are a lot of doubts if these historic events will be those that will bring about a total peace between Israel and its neighbors. It is difficult to argue with what Golda had written in her memoirs “My Life” in 1975: that the Arab and Moslem world has not yet accepted the idea of the existence of a Jewish, Zionist, independent, sovereign state in the heart of the Middle East. Perhaps this will take many more years and Israel must be prepared for every eventuality. She also said: “I believe we shall have peace with our neighbors, but I am certain that no one will make peace with a weak Israel, if Israel will not be strong, there will be no peace”. She then added: “We shall be able to live here only if we will be ready

Preface to the English edition —— VII to fight. Our neighbors will not be that charitable to grant us peace”. These words seem to be valid in 2017.

I am grateful to many who assisted in the funding for the preparation and research that went into this book. Among them are the Leonard Davis Institute of International Relations of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture in New York, the Golda Meir Association headed then by Yehudit Ronen-Reifen. I am also grateful for the assistance given by the Israel Government Archives in Jerusalem, the Central Zionist Archives in Jerusalem, the Pinchas Lavon Labor Movement Archives in Tel Aviv and the National Archives of the United States. I am also grateful to Julia Brauch, Monika Pfleghar and their teams at De Gruyter for initiating this project and seeing it to its completion, and to Cordula Hubert for her meticulous editing of the English text.

For the sake of full and proper disclosure, I knew Golda Meir since my early childhood and had the privilege of serving in the Office of the Prime Minister during the years Golda served in that capacity as Director of the Israel Government Press Office in Jerusalem and for a time as Spokesman of the Prime Minister’s Bureau (1973-1974). My late mother Regina Hamburger-Medzini was probably Golda’s closest friend from the time they met in the second grade of Public School 4 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1906 until Golda’s death seventy-two years later. She was also in the small group that immigrated to Israel in 1921. My mother was an important source for the early years. Over the years I have spoken with scores of people, who knew and worked with Golda in her various capacities. Some were members of her family, close friends and colleagues. Most of them preferred to remain anonymous and I respect their wish. All of them shared with me their recollections, directed me to sources and enlightened me with their evaluations. I must also thank hundreds of my students at the Rothberg International School of the Hebrew University where I have been teaching a course on Israel’s foreign relations in the past forty-five years. They helped me to better understand many events and processes. My family bore with much patience the burden involved in the preparation of two Hebrew and one English versions. Responsibility for the final product rests of course with me.

Meron Medzini Jerusalem 2017

Table of Content

Preface to the English edition — V

Prologue — XI

War and Holocaust (1939-1945) — 80 Towards Independence (1945-1948) —— 103 My Friends, We Are at War (1947-1948) — 142 Interlude in Moscow (1948-1949) — 173 The Seven Good Years (1949-1956) —— 203 Ben-Gurion Commands (1953-1956) —— 226 The Sinai War (1956-1957) — 256

Madam Foreign Minister (1957-1965) — 291 Ben-Gurion Must Go (1956-1966) — 359 The Secretary General (1966-1968) — 391 Madam Prime Minister (1969-1973) — 443

X — Table of Content

20 Everything Is Sinking (1974-1978) — 647 21 Our Golda Is No More (1978) — 671 Epilogue — 681