“…there may still be people who do not understand that we fought that war so successfully not only because we were made to fight it, but also because we profoundly hoped that we would achieve a victory so complete that we would never have to fight again. If the defeat of the Arab armies massed against us could be made total, then perhaps our neighbors would finally give up their “holy war” against us and realize that peace was as necessary for them as for us and that the lives of their sons were as precious as the lives of our sons.. We were wrong about that. The defeat was total, and the Arab losses were devastating, but the Arabs still couldn’t, and didn’t, come to grips with the fact that Israel was not going to accommodate them by disappearing from the map.”
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“If I have to choose one particular aspect of that immediate post-war period as an illustration of the general atmosphere, I would certainly point to the tearing down of the concrete barricade and barbed wire fences that had separated the two halves of the city of Jerusalem ever since 1948. More than anything else those hideous barricades had signified the abnormality of our life, and when they were bulldozed away and Jerusalem overnight became one city, it was like a sign and symbol of a new era. As someone who came to Jerusalem for the very first time said to me: “There is light from within the city”, and I understood exactly what he meant. “Very soon”, I told my grandchildren, “the soldiers will come home; there will be peace; we will be able to travel to Jordan and to Egypt and all will be well.” I honestly believed it, but it wasn’t to be.”
– My Life – the autobiography of Golda Meir, Futura 1976 ISBN 0 8600 7394 7
