Golda Meir Quotes (1898-1978)

“We hate war. We do not rejoice in victories. We rejoice when a new kind of cotton is grown, and when strawberries bloom in Israel.”

“"If we have to have a choice between dead and pitied, and being alive with a bad image, we'd rather be alive and have the bad image."”

“When were Palestinians born? What was all of this area before the First World War when Britain got the Mandate over Palestine? What was Palestine, then? Palestine was then the area between the Mediterranean and the Iraqian border. Eastern West Bank was Palestine. I am a Palestinian, from 1921 to 1948, I carried a Palestinian passport. There was no such thing in this area as Jews, and Arabs, and Palestinians, There were Jews and Arabs.”

“When were Palestinians born? What was all of this area before the First World War when Britain got the Mandate over Palestine? What was Palestine, then? Palestine was then the area between the Mediterranean and the Iraqian border. Eastern West Bank was Palestine. I am a Palestinian, from 1921 to 1948, I carried a Palestinian passport. There was no such thing in this area as Jews, and Arabs, and Palestinians, There were Jews and Arabs.”

“When Golda Meir's speech at Brandeis in June 1973 was disrupted by picketers holding signs that said, "Gramma, how many babies did you kill today?" Diane Balser protested. Her family adored Golda Meir-and, further, "this was Brandeis," where Balser was then enrolled as a Ph.D. student in sociology. Regardless of her disagreement with the Israeli prime minister's policies, Balser saw the placards as "anti-Semitic and as misogynistic attacks on a Jewish woman."”

“By that time it was already clear that the next prime minster was going to be Golda Meir, a woman whom I frankly detested – a mutual sentiment, I might add. I knew her as an opinionated, obstinate person, primitive in her outlook, rigid in her attitudes, with a genius for reaching and exploiting the deepest fears and prejudices of the Jewish masses. I was certain that with her as prime minister, all peace efforts would come to a total standstill.”

“he (Shimon Peres) maintains an ongoing dialogue with the intellectual community. Now that is real change from, say, Menachem Begin-not to mention Golda Meir!”

“We must understand that there was no "Jewish justice," as Golda Meir said in one of her less sterling moments, nor was there "Arab justice," a claim that also has proponents; rather, there were two deep traumas, on which a completely new life, a different world, new hope must be built.”

“Golda Meir relates in her memoirs that when she arrived at the newly established Kibbutz Merhavia, she found the members eating what she called "terrible food": vegetables that "weren't even cooked" in "some awful green oil," spicy olives "that are bad for you, as everyone knows." She took over with a firm hand, and from the day she entered the kitchen she "forced" (as she put it) her companions to desist from their wayward "native" habits, and to start their day with good, hot, cooked mush. Their feeble protests were soon stilled, and they adapted. No wonder it was Golda who later declared that there was no such thing as a Palestinian (by her lights, there wasn't) and that the palm of her hand would sprout hair if Anwar Sadat really came to Jerusalem.”

“Rita Giacoman mentions in passing that she returned from the U.S. to teach public health at Birzeit University in 1969, when Golda Meir announced that there was no such thing as a Palestinian. "So I had to come home," she says, matter of factly, "in defiance of Golda Meir-and today no one dares say it."”