 Israeli
prime minister
- A founder of the
state of Israel, Golda Meir worked her way up the political ladder to
become Israel's first woman prime minister.
Born in the Ukraine, Meir moved with her family to the US, where she
became interested in Zionism. She moved to Palestine in 1921
and became a leading figure in the labor movement as well as an international
representative for Zionism. As Zionist activism
increased in the 1940s and its leaders were imprisoned by the governing
British, Meir often acted as unofficial leader and negotiator for the
movement. She was a signatory to Israel's
independence declaration, held a series of cabinet posts, and worked
to gain the support of nonaligned countries, mainly in Africa.
As premier from 1969, Meir's goal was to establish peace with the Arab
states, but she was plagued by disputes over Arab territories occupied
by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War. For four years she mediated between
the conflicting factions, but divisions over Israel's unreadiness for
the 1973 Yom Kippur War forced her to
resign in 1974.
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