Golda Meir was Israel's fourth Prime Minister and the first woman to hold the post, and was called Israel's 'Iron Lady.' Born in Kiev, raised in Milwaukee, Meir emigrated to Palestine in 1921, rising through the Labor Zionist movement to become one of Israel's founding generation. She was a signatory of Israel's Declaration of Independence in 1948 and served as the young state's envoy to the Soviet Union before entering domestic politics.
Meir served as Labor Minister, Foreign Minister, and then Prime Minister (1969-1974). As Labor Minister (1949-1956) she carried out major programs of housing and road construction and supported unrestricted Jewish immigration to the new state. A socialist Zionist, she had come to politics through the kibbutz and the Histadrut labor federation.
Meir embodied Labor Zionism's socialist economics, collective settlement, and uncompromising security, and her grandmotherly public image went with a reputation for iron resolve. She denied Palestinian national identity, telling the Sunday Times in 1969 that there was no such thing as Palestinians, and expanded settlements after 1967. Her governments held the territories captured in 1967 while calling for negotiations and defensible borders, and no peace agreement with an Arab state was reached during her premiership.
Her tenure was defined by the Yom Kippur War of 1973, when Egypt and Syria launched surprise attacks that nearly overwhelmed Israeli forces. Though Israel ultimately prevailed, the intelligence failure and early losses devastated Meir, who resigned in 1974 after the Agranat Commission examined the state's unpreparedness. Labor, which had governed since independence, lost the 1977 election to Menachem Begin's Likud, the first time the right had led Israel.
Golda Meir is associated with Democratic Socialist. See the archetype