Does Golda Meir Support Israel?

Maya Mizrachi Feb 24, 2025 Updated Aug 06, 2026 3 min read

Short answer: Golda Meir is not able to "support" anything today: she died in Jerusalem on December 8, 1978. During her life she was one of Israel's founding figures, a signer of its 1948 Declaration of Independence, and its fourth prime minister (1969-1974). Her whole public record, from before the state existed until her death, was devoted to building and defending Israel, so the honest framing is "supported" (past tense), not "supports." As of August 2026, that fact has not changed and will not change.

What Golda Meir has actually said and done

Because Meir has been gone for nearly five decades, there are no recent statements to report. What follows is the dated record of her life, drawn from historical and news sources.

May 14, 1948: Golda Meir (then Goldie Myerson) was one of 37 signatories, and one of only two women, on Israel's Declaration of Independence, according to the historical record cataloged on Wikipedia's entry on the Declaration.
1956-1966: As Israel's foreign minister, Meir made outreach to newly independent African states a cornerstone of Israeli foreign policy, including a five-week trip in 1958 and talks with leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah. This work helped found MASHAV, Israel's international development agency, and kept Israel diplomatically engaged at the United Nations, according to the Jewish Women's Archive.
1962: Under Meir's tenure as foreign minister, Israel voted at the United Nations to condemn South Africa's apartheid policy. Meir said it would be contrary to Jewish morality for Israel to stay silent, per the Jewish Women's Archive. See also ISRAEL21c's account of Israel's decades of aid to Africa.
March 17, 1969: Meir became Israel's fourth prime minister and its first, and to date only, woman to hold the office, as documented on Wikipedia's sourced summary of her career.
October 1973: As prime minister, Meir led Israel's government through the Yom Kippur War, a surprise attack by Egypt and Syria. She chose not to launch a preemptive strike, in order to preserve American support, and later voiced regret over not mobilizing reserves sooner, according to National Geographic.
April 11, 1974: Meir resigned as prime minister amid public pressure following the Yom Kippur War, ten days after the Agranat Commission's interim report cleared her personally of responsibility for the war's failures. Her caretaker government left office on June 3, 1974, per Wikipedia's sourced summary of her career.
December 8, 1978: Golda Meir died of lymphoma in Jerusalem at age 80, as reported at the time by The Washington Post.

Who Golda Meir was

Golda Meir was born Golda Mabovitch in Kyiv in 1898 and raised in Milwaukee. A lifelong Labor Zionist, she emigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1921 and rose through the Jewish Agency and the Histadrut labor federation into the founding leadership of the State of Israel. She was not a modern commentator or public figure whose "support" for Israel can be checked today; she was one of the people who built the state. Her record runs from co-signing the 1948 Declaration of Independence, through cabinet posts as labor minister and then foreign minister, to the premiership from 1969 to 1974, when she led the country through the Yom Kippur War. Her foreign-policy program of alliance-building with newly independent African nations, and Israel's vote at the UN condemning apartheid South Africa during her time as foreign minister, are less widely known chapters than her wartime leadership, but they are part of the same consistent record. She died in Jerusalem in December 1978.

The bottom line

Golda Meir died in 1978, so the present-tense question does not apply to her. But across her entire public life she was unambiguously and consistently devoted to building, defending, and representing the State of Israel, from co-signing its founding declaration to leading it as prime minister through the Yom Kippur War.

Carry that legacy with you

Meir's story is part of the same thread that runs through Israel's founding generation to today. If her record of building and standing by the Jewish state resonates with you, our Support Israel collection is a way to carry that same commitment with you every day.

Last updated August 2026. We update these profiles as the record changes.