Why we need to stop sharing Golda Meir quotes every time there’s a war

ITTAY FLESCHER: Her famous pronouncements imply that Israel is always in a binary situation: either kill or be killed. But there is a third way, as Israel showed in 1978

DEAR GOLDA MEIR,

Since your time as prime minister, some quotes attributed to you always seem to go viral every time Israel is at war.

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

Peace will come when Nasser loves his own children more than he hates the Israelis.

What we hold against Nasser is not only the killing of our sons but forcing them for the sake of Israel’s survival to kill others.

Recently, many people misquote these last two, replacing the name of the late Egyptian Prime Minister with “Palestinians” or just “Arabs”.

The message one takes from the three quotes together is that at all times Israel is in a binary situation. Either kill or be killed, annihilate the enemy or be the victim of genocide. While this was certainly true before the Six Day War, when Egypt did indeed express intent to destroy Israel, and before the Yom Kippur war, when Nasser attacked Israel unprepared on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, there is much more to the story.

In 1978, Israel showed that a third way was possible, by signing a peace agreement with Israel’s sworn enemy who had attempted to destroy Israel on numerous occasions. In signing the Camp David Accords, Begin, Sadat and Carter showed that compromise brings far more security than war.

This proved your quote was false. The Peace agreement brought peace between Israelis and Egyptians that has withstood the test of time under several changes of government and despite a great deal of enmity between the two peoples.