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Did Golda Meir let the Yom Kippur War happen? ‘Golda’ biopic aims to rehabilitate her image.
(JTA) — Golda Meir, the first and so far only woman prime minister of Israel, is a figure as shrouded in mythology as she is veiled by plumes of cigarette smoke in “Golda,” a new political drama starring Helen Mirren.
Meir has been called Israel’s “Iron Lady,” alternately lionized as a founder of the state, scorned for her dismissive statements about Palestinians and, most notoriously, held responsible for Israel being caught by surprise at the outbreak of the bloody Yom Kippur War of 1973. The film recreates Meir’s experience during the 19 days of that war, which would indelibly mark both her legacy and the Israeli consciousness. Directed by Israeli filmmaker Guy Nattiv, who won an Oscar for his 2018 short film “Skin,” “Golda” opens in theaters across the United States on Friday.
Generations of Israelis, including many who fought in 1973, have blamed Meir for a traumatizing war. But Nattiv offers a different portrait, building on recently declassified wartime documents that reveal how she was disastrously misinformed by her complacent military commanders. He presents Meir as a steely, ruthless yet vulnerable woman, tortured by guilt and motivated by the belief that she was defending her country from extinction.
“She was the scapegoat of the war,” Nattiv told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “The notion was that she was the only person responsible for this debacle, this failure, and it wasn’t true.”
Nattiv himself was 4 months old when war broke out on Oct. 6, 1973 — Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar — and his mother took him to a bomb shelter while his father headed to the front.
In a colossal intelligence failure, Israel was surprised by a two-front attack from Egypt and Syria, which sought to regain territories they lost in 1967. Many Israelis were overconfident after their young country’s swift victory over three Arab armies in the 1967 Six-Day War. But in the first 24 hours of the Yom Kippur War, thinly manned Israeli positions were overwhelmed along the Suez Canal in the southwest and the Golan Heights in the northeast.
Eventually, Israel won a costly victory: 2,656 Israeli soldiers were killed and 12,000 injured, a heavy toll for a small state. The Arab forces saw 8,258 killed and nearly 20,000 wounded. The national trauma of 1973 turned the public against Meir, previously admired for her long political career that included being a founder of Israel’s Labor Party and raising $50 million from Jewish Americans for the establishment of an Israeli state.
“Golda” frames Meir’s experiences as flashbacks during her testimony to the Agranat Commission of Inquiry, which investigated Israel’s military failings leading up to the war. Although the commission cleared her of wrongdoing, she decided to resign. Four years later, after secretly battling lymphoma for 15 years, Meir died at 80 years old.
Nattiv sought to humanize her with a focus on the isolated, agonizing days of war taking place in the twilight of her life, spent in between war rooms and hospital beds.
“I wanted to show the most pivotal moment in her life and in this country’s life, this junction that shaped her whole image, while she was sick and had to make difficult decisions,” said Nattiv. “I wanted to tell her story through loneliness.”
Nattiv also shows Meir in the place where her political edge converged with a tender instinct: her intimate home kitchen. Like the real Meir, Mirren’s version cooks for the select group of advisors who enter her home. The prime minister was known for serving cheesecake and apple strudel to her powerful guests on Shabbat evenings, accompanied by consultations and debates around the table. The practice became known as “Golda’s Little Kitchen” or her “Kitchen Cabinet.”
Among Meir’s kitchen guests was then-U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, played in the film by Liev Schreiber. Nattiv recreates the tense conversations in which Meir pressured Kissinger to send aid for the Israeli army, whose reserve ammunition was rapidly exhausted in the early shock of the war. The United States, at first hesitant to lose its own access to oil from Arab countries, agreed to send weapons and aircraft to Israel when the Soviet Union began resupplying Egypt and Syria, drawing the Yom Kippur War into the Cold War.
Helen Mirren as Golda Meir and Liev Schreiber as Henry Kissinger in “Golda.” (Sean Gleason/Courtesy of Bleecker Street/Shiv Hans Pictures)
In the film, Kissinger tells Meir that he is an American first, secretary of state second, and only third a Jew. Meir replies, “You forget in Israel we read from right to left.”
This quote was taken directly from history: The 100-year-old former diplomat has long publicly recounted Meir delivering the line. (He has not publicly said whether the coercion came with a bowl of borscht and a dollop of Holocaust guilt, as shown in the film.)
While Meir was tough with her allies and brutal to her adversaries, “Golda” portrays the prime minister as a victim of her own advisors in the film. She is shown taking the fall for the egregious errors of her military leaders — in particular Chief of Military Intelligence Eli Zeira and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan — to protect the public’s faith in its army.
Documents declassified in 2020 showed that Zeira ignored intelligence warnings that Cairo and Damascus were poised to attack, withholding the communications from the government in his belief that the chance of imminent war was “lower than low.” Meanwhile, Dayan objected to fully mobilizing troops in the hours before the war, according to his testimony to the Agranat Commission, which was declassified in 2008.
“Golda” does not address the widely leveled criticism that Meir could have avoided war altogether. For months preceding the attacks, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat made repeated overtures for a peace settlement if Israel agreed to return the Sinai Peninsula, which it seized during the Six-Day War. He was rebuffed.
Documents released in 2013 showed that Meir did offer to discuss ceding “most of the Sinai,” but since she was not willing to return completely to the pre-1967 borders, Egypt rejected the talks. In back-channel communications with Kissinger, Meir vowed to prevent any peace initiative that required recognizing Egyptian sovereignty over the Sinai, according to Israeli historian Yigal Kipnis, author of the 2012 book “1973: The Road to War.”
As a result of the bitter war, Israel and Egypt signed a disengagement agreement in January 1974. In 1979, following U.S.-brokered negotiations at Camp David, Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed a peace treaty. Egypt became the first Arab state to officially recognize Israel, and Israel withdrew fully from the Sinai Peninsula.
Nattiv credits the ensuing peace to Meir, with a title card at the end of the film reading, “Her legacy of saving her country from annihilation leading to peace serves as her memorial.”
But critics such as Kipnis have argued that peace might have been achieved sooner with negotiations before the conflict that, he has suggested, could be called the “unnecessary war.”
Meir will always be a controversial figure in Israel, said Nattiv. Whatever judgment the audience makes of her, he believes it is important for Israeli audiences to absorb how leadership blinded by hubris and power can poison a society. He referenced the current political crisis in Israel, in which Prime Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to weaken the Israeli Supreme Court have triggered mass protests that have been ongoing since January.
“It’s kind of crazy that today we see the Yom Kippur of democracy in Israel,” said Nattiv. “The blindness again, the same debacle that happened in 1973 is returning now.”
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The post Did Golda Meir let the Yom Kippur War happen? ‘Golda’ biopic aims to rehabilitate her image. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Anti-Israel Group Lambasted for ‘Desecrating the Name of Raphael Lemkin’ in ‘Infuriating Abuse’
Raphael Lemkin being interviewed on Feb. 13, 1949. Photo: Screenshot
Pressure is mounting on a Philadelphia-based nonprofit organization that has usurped the name of a Jewish lawyer and anti-genocide activist to pursue a campaign of strident anti-Israel activism.
Earlier this month, The Algemeiner exposed the extreme anti-Israel activities of the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, reporting that family members of Raphael Lemkin are outraged that the name of Lemkin, who died in 1959, is being used without their permission to groundlessly vilify the world’s lone Jewish state.
Jewish organizations and Israeli government representatives voiced alarm at the situation disclosed in the article. Lemkin was an ardent Zionist who coined the term genocide and spearheaded the effort to win passage of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, while the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, founded in 2021, has repeatedly and — despite all evidence to the contrary — accused Israel of planning and perpetrating a genocide in Gaza.
“The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention (@LemkinInstitute) is desecrating the name of Raphael Lemkin and the word ‘genocide’ by falsely labeling the Gaza war as ‘genocide,’” the Simon Weisenthal Center said in a social media post linking to The Algemeiner story. “Lemkin was a Jewish lawyer who coined the term ‘genocide’ and dedicated his life to exposing the horrors of the Holocaust. While the Lemkin Institute is entitled to its political agenda, it has no right to besmirch Lemkin’s legacy.”
An Israeli diplomat, Tammy Rahaminoff-Honig, posted about the article from her official government account: “An important story by @IraStoll in the @Algemeiner reveals infuriating abuse by @LemkinInstitute of Raphael Lemkin’s name and legacy, as well as the terms Holocaust and Genocide, for political bashing of Israel.”
The Azerbaijani Jewish Assembly of America wrote in response to the article, “Finally, @LemkinInstitute has been exposed. It has been a platform for not only antisemitic rhetoric but also blatant Azerbaijanophobia. Backed by funding from the Armenian lobby, it has relentlessly targeted Azerbaijan, promoting the dehumanization of the Azerbaijani people.”
The Lemkin Institute, which didn’t answer The Algemeiner‘s inquiries before the article was published, issued “a note on recent criticism of the Lemkin Institute.”
“We are proud of our record and of our unfailingly frank assessments,” the statement said. “It is almost never popular to call out genocide as it is happening or to point to red flags as the process is getting started.”
In a social media post, Michel Elgort characterized the Lemkin Institute’s note as “a very long, vague, and empty statement that didn’t answer the most basic question that was asked by The Algemeiner: Did you or did you not co-opted the name of Raphael Lemkin to appropriate the good will associated with his name and works, without his family and successors approval?”
The post Anti-Israel Group Lambasted for ‘Desecrating the Name of Raphael Lemkin’ in ‘Infuriating Abuse’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Mayor Olivia Chow’s city hall has yet to adequately address antisemitism in Toronto, based on Jewish community complaints
It’s been a rocky year for relations between Toronto’s Jewish community and city hall following the Oct. 7, 2023, assault on Israel—which led to an ongoing regional war in the […]
The post Mayor Olivia Chow’s city hall has yet to adequately address antisemitism in Toronto, based on Jewish community complaints appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Amsterdamned: The Shame of Femke Halsema
Mayor of Amsterdam Femke Halsema attends a press conference following the violence targeting fans of an Israeli soccer team, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Nov. 8, 2024. Photo: Reuters/Piroschka Van De Wouw
JNS.org – In the arsenal of the antisemite, denial is a key weapon. Six million Jews were exterminated during the Holocaust? Didn’t happen. The Soviet Union persecuted its Jewish population in the name of anti-Zionism? Zionist propaganda. Rape and mutilation were rampant during the massacre in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023? What a smear upon the noble resistance of Hamas. And so on.
No surprise, then, that the left-wing mayor of Amsterdam, Femke Halsema, is now publicly regretting her use of the word “pogrom” in her summation of the shocking antisemitic violence unleashed by Arab and Muslim gangs in the Dutch city in the wake of the soccer match between local giants Ajax and visitors Maccabi Tel Aviv two weeks ago.
One day after the violence, Halsema noted that “boys on scooters crisscrossed the city in search of Israeli football fans, it was a hit and run. I understand very well that this brings back the memory of pogroms.” She could have also mentioned (but didn’t) that the Dutch authorities ignored warnings from Israel that the violence was being stoked in advance in private threads on social-media platforms, resulting in a massive policing failure; that Ajax supporters were not involved in the attacks, undermining claims that what happened was merely another episode in the long history of inter-fan violence at soccer matches; and that the “boys” engaged in the assaults were overwhelmingly youths of Moroccan or other Middle Eastern or North African backgrounds, who gleefully told their victims that their actions were motivated by the desire to “free Palestine.” But at least Halsema grasped the nature of the violence. Or so we thought.
A few days later, she rolled back her initial comments. “I must say that in the following days, I saw how the word ‘pogrom’ became very political and actually became propaganda,” she stated in an interview with Dutch media. “The Israeli government, talking about a Palestinian pogrom in the streets of Amsterdam. In The Hague, the word pogrom is mainly used to discriminate against Moroccan Amsterdammers, Muslims. I didn’t mean it that way. And I didn’t want it that way.”
On the left, the enemy is “Jewish privilege,” and on the right, it is “Jewish supremacism.”
Halsema’s discomfort does not, of course, mean that what happened in Amsterdam was not a pogrom. Nor does she speak for the entirety of the Dutch political class. Both the center-right VVD Party and the further-right PVV Party, for example, continue to describe the violence as a pogrom and have suggested strong measures for countering further outrages targeting local Jews and visiting Israelis. Both parties have urged a clampdown on mosque funding from countries promoting Islamism, such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and have called on the Netherlands to follow Germany’s example in denying or removing citizenship from those convicted of antisemitism.
But the mayor’s 180-degree turn speaks volumes about how the left in Europe enables antisemitism by denying that it is a serious problem. To begin with, there is a refusal to situate each incident in its historical context, which makes it all the easier to portray violent explosions as an anomaly. Listening to Halsema, you would never know that the Amsterdam pogrom was preceded in March by a violent demonstration at the opening of the National Holocaust Museum, where pro-Hamas protestors masked with keffiyehs and brandishing Palestinian flags—this century’s equivalent of a brown shirt and a Nazi armband—lobbed fireworks and eggs in protest at the presence of Israeli President Isaac Herzog. What you will realize, however, is that Halsema is terrified of being labeled “Islamophobic.” That explains her pleas for understanding for a bunch of Moroccan thugs who express contempt not just for Israel but for the country that has provided them a sanctuary with housing, education and many other benefits.
Not only are Jews expected to take all this abuse lying down; they are then told by non-Jewish leftist politicians—often aided by Jewish “anti-Zionist” lackeys—that they have no right to situate the violence directed against them within the continuum of Jewish persecution over the centuries. What happened in Amsterdam, we are badgered into believing, was different because it wasn’t motivated by hatred of Jews but a righteous rejection of Israeli policy.
That’s why the behavior of some of the Maccabi fans is brought into the equation. Video showing fans descending into a subway as they chanted “F**k the Arabs” spread like wildfire on social-media platforms, along with reports that Palestinian flags adorning some private homes had been torn down. I am not going to endorse these actions, even if, as a Jew, I can understand and empathize with the feelings that motivated them, but I also consider them essentially irrelevant to this case. The advance planning of the pogrom, coupled with the wretched record of pro-Hamas demonstrations around the Netherlands in the previous year, proves that the Maccabi fans would have been hounded and attacked even if their behavior had been impeccable. Moreover, legally and morally, violent assaults are in a different league than acts of petty vandalism or the singing of distasteful songs. There can be no comparison, and nor should there be.
What the Amsterdam pogrom underlines is that the extremes of the left and the unreconstructed elements of the nationalist right are now at one in their attitudes towards Jews. On the left, the enemy is “Jewish privilege,” and on the right, it is “Jewish supremacism.” Both terms carry the same meaning, but are expressed in language designed to appeal the prejudices of their respective supporters. For the left, claims of antisemitism are dismissed as expressions of Jews exercising their “privilege,” dishonestly seeking victim status at the same time as the “colonial” state they identify with is persecuting the “indigenous” inhabitants. For the right, claims of antisemitism are a tactic to shield the contention that Jews are superior to everyone else. Translated, both communicate the same message: The violence you experience is violence you bring upon yourselves.
To her eternal shame, Halsema is now trafficking in this noxious idea while presiding over a city in which no Jew can now feel safe, less than a century after their ancestors were rounded up and deported by the German occupiers. She should resign.
The post Amsterdamned: The Shame of Femke Halsema first appeared on Algemeiner.com.