Her advisers were sending mixed messages - some smelled war, others scoffed at what they believed was an Arab bluff - and Meir feared that striking first would jeopardize U.S. Many point to her flawed decision not to launch a preemptive strike in the weeks prior to the Yom Kippur War - a strategy used to success in ’67. By refusing to think outside a narrow box, Meir and her colleagues failed to negotiate peace. “Unwavering, cautious and determined” are words Lustick uses to describe Israel’s formidable leading lady. “Unimaginative” is another. in its pocket, and the Arabs were terrified of Israeli power,” he says.īy refusing to think outside a narrow box, Meir and her colleagues failed to negotiate peace.īut a combination of presumption, inflexibility and calamitous error led to the October 1973 war, snapping Israelis out of what Lustick calls a “kind of euphoria.” Meir would prove an adept wartime leader, but cracks in her armor would come to light after the fact, exposing faulty decisions in the months leading up to that fateful fall day. By 1970, says Ian Lustick, professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, Meir had committed Israel in principle to pursuing land for peace policies and brought an end to the attrition, giving Israelis the sense that they could do no wrong.
Meir, after all, was at the helm that October 6, when Syrians and Egyptians surprised Israeli front-line defenses on Yom Kippur - the holiest day of the Jewish calendar - and she would forever be blamed for the 2,500-plus soldiers who perished. A War of Attrition along the borders carved by the Six-Day War of 1967 - in which Israeli troops seized the Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula (to the eastern bank of the Suez Canal), West Bank and Golan Heights - had left Israel weary of artillery barrages and guerrilla marauders killing soldiers on either side of the canal and the Jordan Valley. From 1969 to 1974, she served as prime minister of the Jewish State, and few people, according to Elinor Burkett in Golda, could “resist admiring her as a tough negotiator who also found time to fix tea and cake for Henry Kissinger.”īut by late 1973, many in Israel would begin looking at their doting leader in a less-flattering light. The lady behind the apron? A fiercely committed Labor Zionist and socialist - born in present-day Ukraine, educated in America - who would become the West’s first female head of state.
Israeli politicos were invited to swing by for informal chats with Golda Meir, giving rise to her famed “kitchen cabinet” and the image of a beloved grandmother who had dedicated her life to Israel. Turkish coffee and apfelstrudel were served as the hostess puffed away on her cigarettes, serving up political savvy alongside the treats. Consider this a sneak peek into how a woman could rule the world.
When Women Rule: A special weeklong series on how influential women leaders managed - or mishandled - major crises during their tenure.