Talk:Golda Meir

Meir's Visit to Haifa on May 6 - Original sources needed for verification

1) "There, she witnessed an elderly Arab woman emerging from a destroyed house, clutching to her few remaining belongings. When the two women made eye contact, they burst into tears."

The only source I can find on this claim is https://www.haifa-israel.info/Haifahistoireanglais.html which claims to cite Haaretz article Port in a storm by Shay Fogelman (3/6/11) which is unfortunately paywalled. However, the cited text on haifa-israel.info differs from this sentence above.

"The commander of the Haganah in Haifa, Yaakov Lubliani, gave the following account of a visit to the city by Golda Meir, who at the time was a senior official in the Jewish Agency’s Political Department: “I suggested to her that we visit the Old City. She told me she did not want to see the ruins and the desolation. She wanted to visit an area where there were still Arabs. I took her to the Wadi Nisnas neighborhood. We came to Muchlis Street. We walked up some stairs. The apartments on the first two floors were abandoned. When we reached the third floor, an old Arab woman approached us, carrying some bundles. When she saw Golda she stopped and burst into tears. Golda stopped, looked at her, and tears streamed down her face. The two women stood there and cried..."

The claimed source of this quote is "Haganah Battles in Haifa” ‏1978‏ by Zadok Eshel"

2) "Meir went on to call the mass expulsion and flight of Arabs before the 1948 Palestine war 'dreadful', and likened it to what befell the Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe.'"

The "dreadful" quote comes from the cited NY Times article without its own original source citation. I have tracked a similar quote that claims to be from a Benny Morris book, but this requires its own confirmation as well as whether or not the parentheticals regarding Jewish towns Nazi-occupied Europe are something Meir cited. Given her own biographical history, I am not sure that that suggetion is likely as she was not present in Nazi-occupied Europe. It's quite possible she is referencing Russian pogroms of her youth in Kiev.

Supposed quote of this information (that needs to be confirmed):

"It is a dreadful thing to see the dead city. Next to the port I found children, women, the old, waiting for a way to leave. I entered the houses, there were houses where the coffee and pita bread were left on the table, and I could not avoid [thinking] that this, indeed, had been the picture in many Jewish towns [i.e., in Europe, during World War II]. (as quoted in “The birth of the Palestinian Refuge problem revisited” by Benny Morris, p.309/10)" [Third party source: http://www.subir.com/2014/08/misquoting-golda-meir/] 2603:9001:E00:198F:D90D:BFE8:6630:9E00 (talk) 18:51, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

I have the Haaretz article and it contains this anecdote. I question its reliability though. Supposedly Haganah commander Yaakov Lubliani told it to Zadok Eshel who put it in a book published by the Ministry of Defence. Hmmmm. Zero^talk 12:30, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

Would you mind posting the relevant section? Does it match with what's in the wiki?

"There, she witnessed an elderly Arab woman emerging from a destroyed house, clutching to her few remaining belongings. When the two women made eye contact, they burst into tears."

Some of this looks like embellishment given the text listed as an excerpt from Eshel's book. 2603:9001:E00:198F:B4B7:90A:ABBD:E83C (talk) 16:33, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

The paragraph "The commander of the Haganah in Haifa..." at https://www.haifa-israel.info/Haifahistoireanglais.html is verbatim from the Haaretz article and there is nothing else about the incident in the Haaretz article. The Haaretz article presents it as a quotation from Eshel's book. So our text here is a poor report. The source does not say "ruined house"; the source has "some bundles" rather than "few remaining belongings", etc. I would prefer to remove it rather than fixing it. Zero^talk 00:05, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

What's your suggested edit for the paragraph then? 108.188.243.224 (talk) 20:22, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

I removed the dubious text. Zero^talk 09:23, 21 August 2025 (UTC)

Meir's Second Meeting with Abdullah

CHANGE

On 10 May, Meir had a second meeting wHammurrabi (talk) 14:28, 30 August 2025 (UTC)ith Abdullah I. She travelled to Amman in secret, disguised as an Arab woman. He proposed that Palestine be absorbed into Jordan, with autonomy granted to majority-Jewish areas. Golda rejected the proposal. It then seemed likely that Abdullah I would invade.

TO

On the 11th of May, alongside Ezra Danin, Meir had a second meeting with Abdullah I. Abdullah had refused to meet her at Naharayim again, citing safety concerns, and told her that if she wanted to meet with him she would need to make her way to Amman. He had also refused to notify the Arab Legion of her arrival, forcing Meir to travel to Amman in secret disguised as an Arab woman.

The two met Abdullah in the home of an associate of Danin. When asked if Abdullah would break the promise he made to her at Naharayim, he responded by claiming that he had made the promise when he was alone, but now he was "one of five", and that he did not have the capability to fulfill the promise alone. Abdullah asked Meir to let him integrate Jordan into Palestine, with Jews being granted representation in the Jordanian parliament, but Meir refused, claiming that autonomy was no longer the goal of the Zionist movement since the Holocaust and that Jordan was yet to have a constitution that granted the parliament any powers.

By the end of the meeting, the two failed to reach an agreement and Abdullah told Meir that he would be forced to invade due to pressure from the Arab League. Meir expressed that she would be open to meeting him again after Israel had won the war.

Source: https://www.goldameir.org.il/index.php?dir=site&page=content&cs=5345&langpage=heb Hammurrabi (talk) 14:28, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

 Done Thepharoah17 (talk) 04:58, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

This request should have been declined, since the source is Meir's memoirs and memoirs are notoriously unreliable as every historian knows. There are plenty of good secondary sources that could be used instead. Zero^talk 11:56, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

References

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 17 September 2025

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 Not done: No edit request made. LizardJr8 (talk) 21:06, 17 September 2025 (UTC)