Lioness: Golda Meir and the Nation of Israel by Francine Klagsbrun

Author:Francine Klagsbrun
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Presidents & Heads of State, Women, History, Middle East, Israel & Palestine
ISBN: 9780805242379
Google: BrfnDQAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0805242376
Publisher: Schocken
Published: 2017-10-17T00:00:00+00:00

20

Conflict and Charisma

“What was will not be again,” Golda Meir told journalists at the airport upon her return to Israel on the evening of March 9, 1957. Egypt will not behave in Gaza as it had before the Suez campaign, and Israel’s ships will no longer encounter the difficulties they had experienced going through the Straits of Tiran. With that declaration, which she repeated three times to the press and again at a cabinet meeting the next day, Mrs. Meir hoped to mitigate the disappointment the nation and its leaders felt in the outcome of the Sinai campaign.

She looked good stepping off the plane, healthy, with no sign of her recent illness or of fatigue after the long battle at the UN. Having rallied from her despair after delivering her withdrawal speech to the General Assembly, she now tried to put the best face possible on Israel’s retreat. The small nation had gained international recognition by standing up for what it believed even under the threat of sanctions, she emphasized in all her talks. Israel had not withdrawn out of fear of sanctions. In fact, many Americans had disapproved of Eisenhower’s bullying, and the American Jewish community had stood solidly behind the Jewish state. Indeed, when the president tried to enlist prominent Zionist and non-Zionist Jewish leaders to his side, they opposed him with “strength and pride,” she relayed.

Israel evacuated Sinai and other areas, Golda explained, because it had found itself isolated in the United Nations. It could not win votes for its cause and could not stand up forever against the UN demands. Only France had backed it. (Whatever Golda’s attitude at the beginning of the operation, she had come to see France as a “true friend.”) So when the French minister Pineau came up with a compromise that gave Israel the right to self-defense if Egypt were to revert to its original practices, she and the others agreed to accept it.

Golda’s explanation at the cabinet meeting did not convince everybody. Casting about for someone to blame, Israel Bar-Yehuda from the Ahdut Ha’avoda Party, wondered about Abba Eban. Had the time come to replace the ambassador in light of his failure to convince Dulles or Eisenhower of the justice of Israel’s cause? Golda instantly leaped to his defense. “If any hint comes out of this meeting that Eban is going to be recalled, I will not remain in this government even one hour longer,” she threatened several times. It was a surprisingly vehement response in light of her blowout with Eban a week earlier, when she screamed at him and he slammed the door on her. In the best tradition of a benevolent boss, she felt called upon in this setting to protect and defend a member of her team. In the process, she also established that she was the boss. “I am responsible,” she averred. “I was there. I am responsible, and I will not allow anyone to blame Eban.” Regardless of how visible Eban had become or

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