Golda Meir - Ministerial Career

Ministerial Career

Meir was one of 24 signatories (two of them women) of the Israeli Declaration of Independence on May 14, 1948. She later recalled, "After I signed, I cried. When I studied American history as a schoolgirl and I read about those who signed the Declaration of Independence, I couldn't imagine these were real people doing something real. And there I was sitting down and signing a declaration of establishment." Israel was attacked the next day by the joint armies of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, and Iraq, along with expeditionary forces from other Arab countries and Arab guerilla movements in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. During the war, Israel stopped the combined Arab assault, then launched a series of military offensives and expanded its territorial holdings.