Anita Arnand

He gets in touch with Golda Meir.

She was the Iron Lady of Israel, one of its founding leaders.

Born in Kiev in 1898, grew up in a family of poverty and persecution, the pogroms of the Russian Empire.

She migrated then to Wisconsin, joined the Labour Zionist Party in the United States, and soon after marrying her husband when she was just 19, they moved back to Mandate Palestine in 1921.

And straight away, she's involved in politics.

She's very active in trade unions, in the Jewish agency, becoming one of the signatories of Israel's Declaration of Independence in 1948.

And then she rises to the position of foreign minister from 1956 to 1966.

And it's after the death of Prime Minister Levi Eshkor in 1969, where, you know, you have a short period where you've got Yigal Alon, famously of the Alon plan, who served as interim prime minister.

There's a snap election.

And then in March 1969, the Labour Party invites Golda Meir out of retirement, because bear in mind, she's 70.

now to run as prime minister so she becomes israel's first and so far only female prime minister anyway so that's who we're talking about what do we know about their response to this and the conversations that they're having i mean there must have been frantic phone calls going on here

So the United States, yes, our involvement in this is interesting because, you know, seeing this unimpeded attack from two different sides, the U.S.

decides to airlift an entire new tank regiment into Israel.

So resupplies the army.

This is, remember, the Nixon administration.

And they are in a difficult position because they want to make inroads into the Arab world.

Does it sound familiar to anybody?

And yet they can't let Israel go because Israel is an absolute ally, a predictable ally in this region.

Not without merit, because remember, both of these places have been thick with Soviets in very high positions.

You know, Sadat will eventually take a broom and clean them out of Egypt.