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Sunday, October 6, 2024

Ivanka Trump finds inspiration from Israel’s Golda Meir

Ivanka Trump, the eldest daughter of US President Donald Trump, marked International Women’s Day by tweeting a quote from Israel’s first woman prime minister Golda Meir.

Trump told her followers to “make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement,” in her tweet posted on Thursday.

Trump shared the quote, along with the message that “Women’s day is every day! Happy Thursday! #internationalwomensday”

International Women’s Day was Wednesday, 8th March.

Golda Meir was noted for her toughness in a male-dominated world, and gained huge admiration and respect from the Israelis, which remains to this day even though she died in 1978 from lymphoma.

 

The actual quote from Meir begins with advice on building self-esteem. “Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life,” she said.

Meir was born in Kiev (modern day Ukraine) and grew up in Milwaukee. She served as Israel’s prime minister from 1969 until her resignation in 1974, following the Yom Kippur War. Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, used to refer to Meir as “the best man in the government.”

She was the world’s fourth and Israel’s first and only woman to hold such an office, she has been described as the “Iron Lady” of Israeli politics. A term which was later used for Margaret Thatcher, UK Prime-minister.

Golda Meir, shown in January 1964, was not the world's first female prime minister. (Wikimedia Commons/JTA)

Golda Meir, shown in January 1964, was not the world’s first female prime minister.

Last December pro-Palestinian activists in Kent State Universitywere unsuccessful in their appeal for the university to remove a picture of Meir along with the quote from a public display. Head of the local chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine claimed that the quote “contributes to a climate that makes us feel like we [Palestinian Arab and black students] do not belong here.”