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Pa*o 14 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE April 29,
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Golda,
are you now that Israel needs you?
by Clare Boothe Luce
The story of Golds Meir’s rise
to greatness, despite the
somewhat deceptive candor with
which she tells it, remains in my
mind as one of the great
mysteries of the human spirit.
She was born in Russia, in a
pit of poverty and oppression.
All the circumstances of her
childhood were calculated to
wither her spirit, cripple her
will, and leave her with no
greater ambition than to survive
from day to day. Her first vivid
memory — at the age of 3 — was
the fear of being trampled to
death under the hooves of
Cossack horses. There seemed to
have been not a single good fairy
at her cradle. The external gifts
of feminine grace and beauty
were not inordinately bestowed
on her. Nor did any muse endow
her with a “creative” talent. Ex
cept for glancing, though sym-
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Golds at age 8 .
pathetic, references here and
there to her husband’s fondness
for poetry and music (Omar
Khayyam and phonograph
records), there is no evidence
that Golda Meir herself ever had
any real interest in art, music or
literature. Her girlhood, spent in
the Jewish district of
Milwaukee, was free of the grim
terrors of Czarist pogroms. But
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it remained a drab, shabby ex
istence, full of endless family
concerns about money. Her
parents were worriers and
naggers. They did not support
even her modest ambition to
finish a public high school
education. Her mother’s highest
ambition for her was to have her
marry a good Jewish man with
an income, hopefully a little
above the poverty level.
At 20, she married the young
man of her choice. Morris Myer-
son was a sign painter, with no
great ambition to be anything
else. In a touching letter writ
ten to her during their long (and
placid) courtship, he confessed
that he quite lacked the virtue
she seemed most to admire, an “in
domitable will.” He was a com
pliant rather than a supportive
mate. No stroke of luck brought
the young couple contacts with
well-to-do, no less rich or power
ful friends who might have
helped them up the American
ladder.
When Golda decided that she
must migrate to Palestine and
live and labor in a kibbutz,
Morris reluctantly consented.
Altogether it is hard to imagine
a young female less likely to
become a world-famous figure
than the poor, plain "Yiddisher”
girl from Kiev and Milwaukee,
who landed in 1920 in British-
mandated Palestine with ap
parently nothing to contribute to
her people but a strong back.
And yet — and yet, if there
were no good fairies at her cradle,
there seemed to be One present
there who had plans of His own
for her future — the God of
Israel. And He bestowed on her
three gifts: He gave her a vision
— s single-pointed vision — if
you will, a “tunnel vision” — of
the rebirth of Zion and the end
of the 2000-year-old Diaspora.
He gave her courage, the
greatest of all the virtues, since
it is the ladder on which all the
other virtues must mount, and
He gave it to her in abundance.
And He gave her the gift of lov
ing, which is to say the con
suming desire to work and
sacrifice for the peace and
security of her people in the
Land of Israel.
Golda Meir would certainly
not accept this interpretation of
herself as a “chosen vessel.” As
for the Jews being a chosen
people,” she writes, “I never
quits accepted that. It seemed,
and still Menu to me, more
reasonable to behave, not that
Gedehoss the Jews, but that the
Jews were tbs first people that
ehosst Gsd, the first people to
hsvs done something truly
revolutionary, sad it was this
choice that made them unique."
_ . .V"-
Ben-Gunon probably
recognized the mystic in Golda
Meir. He urged her to drop her
husband’s name — Myerson —
and take the name “Meir,” which
means in Hebrew
“illumination." Whether Golda
herself understood it or not,
Ben-Gurion seemed to under
stand that she was an illuminati
— one of those rare beings
whose minds, being free of the
fog of self-serving ambition,
quickly grasp the truth or the
reality of every situation.
An American official who had
many contacts with Meir when
she was prime minister told me
that she had “the uncanny abili
ty to cut to the core of the most
complicated problem, and to
summarize the best possible
solution in a few simple
sentences. She never got bogged
down in Talmudic reasoning."
"There are 21 Arab states,”
writes Golda Meir, “rich in oil,
land and sovereignty. There is
only one small state, in which
Jewish national independence
has been dearly achieved. Surely
it is not extravagant to demand
that in the current power play
the right of a small democracy to
freedom and life be not
betrayed?”
Meir has been both the foreign
minister and the prime minister
of her country. She is well aware
that her question is simply
bitter rhetoric. “The world is
harsh, selfish, and
materialistic," she writes. “It is
insensitive to the sufferings of
small nations.” No one knows so
well as she does that there is not
a single power in the world
which is willing today to risk
even a second oil embargo, no
less involvement in a war with
the Soviet-supported Arabs, in
order to defend the in
dependence of Israel. She also
knows that, as matters stand,
this includes the United States.
Golda Meir does not blink at
the realities of US-Israel ’
relations. In the days of the Yom
Kippur war, when US
diplomatic pressure forced
Israel to accept cease fire terms
hurtful to its best interests, she
told her cabinet, “There is only
one country to which we can
turn, and sometimes we have to
give in to it — even when we
know we shouldn’t But it is the
only real friend we have, and a
very powerful one. We don't
have to say yos to everything,
but let's call things by their
proper name. There is nothing to
be ashamed of when a small
country like Israel has to give in
sometimes to the United States.
And when we da say yes, let’s for
God's sake, not pretend that Hie
otherwise and that black n
white."
Golda Meir knows that Israel’s
hope of survival depends both on
continued — and massive —
economic and defense aid and
diplomatic support from the
United States, and on the
courage and political unity of the
Israeli people. Neither the one
nor the other alone will suffice to
keep Israel free in the decade
ahead.
And she has no illusions about
- . . and at age 78.
ultimate Arab intentions. "I
have never doubted for an in
stant that the true aim of the
Arab States has been, and still
is, the total destruction of the
State of Israel.”
In passing, one of Meir’s
dearest illusions — certainly the
dearest — was shattered during
the -Yom Kippur war. This was
the illusion that the Socialist
countries of the West would ral
ly to the support of Israel in its
great hour of danger. “For my
own good,” she told socialist Wil
ly Brandt,” I need to know what
possible meaning socialism can
have when not a single socialist
country in all of Europe was
prepared to come to the aid of
the only democracy in the Mid
dle East.” She discovered the
answer at a meeting of the
socialist International
Conference in London: Arab oil
is thicker than Jewish blood,
even in the socialist
democracies. Socialism had been
her secular religion. One can
only guess how cruelly hurt she
must have been by the wholesale
betrayal of her fellow Socialists.
I cannot forbear mentioning
that she felt there was one
leader of the West who did not
betray her — or Israel: Richard
Nixon. Recounting the appeals
she made to Washington in the
early days of the Yom Kippur
war, she wrote, “President Nix
on had promised to help us, and I
knew from my past experience
he would not let us down. Let me
. repeat something that I have
said often before (usually to the
extreme annoyance of many of
my American friends). However
history judges Richard Nixon...
it must also be put on the record
forever that he did not break a
single promise.”
It will take enormous wisdom
on the part of Israeli leaders to
“sweat out” the dangerous
decade ahead. The Founding
Fathers, who brought Israel into
existence, Chaim Weizmann,
Ben-Gurion, Eskol, have all
passed on. Golda Meir, “The
Founding Mother,” is the last
living link with the giants who
made the dream of Zion come
true. She is the living symbol of
Jewish courage. What a pity
that she is no longer in a position
of leadership. Who better could
“illuminate” the gloom that
seems to have descended on the
Israeli spirit
t)=
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Page 15 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE April 29, 1977