Education Sasson was born in
Damascus in
Ottoman Syria. He studied at an
Alliance School in his hometown, went to high school at the prestigious "Alezaria"
Christian high school in Damascus alongside Christians and Muslims of the
upper class and graduated from the
Université Saint-Joseph in
Beirut.
Zionist activity within the framework of the Syrian National Movement In his youth, starting in 1918, he worked as part of the Syrian National Movement and under the patronage and funding of
King Faisal, he published an Arabic newspaper called "Al Hayat" and edited it to promote "understanding and cooperation in the Middle East between Jews and Arabs". At the same time he engaged in
Zionist activity, and led struggles of the younger generation in Damascus to give a Hebrew-Zionist tone to the Jewish Community Committee and its schools. He wrote many articles on this topic for Hebrew newspapers published in
Israel such as
Do'ar HaYom. In the years 1919-1920 he was involved in establishing and editing a newspaper called "Al-Sharq" (The East), a Zionist newspaper in
Arabic that was published in Damascus for a short period. In the years 1922–1927, he fled from the
French Mandate authorities and lived in the city of
Mersin in
Turkey. Through journalistic writing, he maintained contact with Faisal's camp "which tried to preserve the embers of Arab nationalism and called for the elimination of the imperialist factor and the establishment of an Arab state".
Intelligence and political activity until the end of the War of Liberation In 1927 Sasson
immigrated to Mandatory Palestine, where he worked as a
laborer, and at the same time engaged in public activity as a
lecturer on
Middle Eastern affairs. After years of independent activity while criticizing the Yishuv establishment regarding the treatment of Arabs and deprivation of the
Jews of Arab countries, he became a member of the
Jewish Agency. Between 1934 and 1948 he headed the agency's Arab department, issuing a daily report on the Palestinian Arab press and background papers based on analysis of the Middle East press and meetings with Arab leaders. He was also engaged in intelligence gathering, and among other things recruited in
Egypt Yolande Harmer, a
Jewish journalist born in
Alexandria, who carried out
espionage missions for the agency and worked for
French intelligence and the interests of the
Yishuv and the State of Israel on the eve of the
War of Independence, during which the
Prime Minister of
Syria,
Jamil Mardam. With the establishment of the state, he was appointed director of the Middle East Department at the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Before that he was a member of the delegation to the
United Nations (1947–1948). In 1948 and 1949 he was a member of the Israeli delegations to the
armistice talks at the end of the War of Independence with Egypt and
Lebanon. He was then a member of the delegation to the
Lausanne Conference, and later headed the delegation (1949).
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Israeli Governments While in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sasson served as the head of the special office in
Paris for relations with the Arabs, Israel's
chargé d'affaires to Turkey (1950–1952), Israel's chargé d'affaires and
Ambassador in
Rome (1953–1960) and Israel's Ambassador to
Switzerland (1960–1961). In 1961 he returned to Israel in order to join
David Ben-Gurion's government as
Post Office Minister. He also held this position under the
Levy Eshkol government until the beginning of January 1967, when he was appointed
Minister of Police in place of
Bachor-Shalom Sheetrit who retired for health reasons. As the post minister, he opposed the recommendations of a committee headed by
Zvi Dinstein that recommended transferring the telephonye services in Israel to a company whose
shares would initially be in the hands of the government, because of concern for the employees, and therefore the recommendations were not implemented. He served as Police Minister until the end of 1969, under Levi Eshkol and
Golda Meir. Upon Sassoon's entry into the position, he was given a position lacking authority and led a struggle to transfer authority from the police to the Ministry of National Security. Sasson died in October 1978 at the end of a serious illness that had confined him to bed for several years and had forced him to retire from his position as Minister of Police. He was buried in
Har HaMenuchot in a funeral attended by thousands. his son was a
diplomat, who served among other things as
ambassador to
Italy and the
Vatican and as ambassador to
Egypt, his daughter Ora married
Aviad Yaffeh, a diplomat and member of the Knesset. ==Notes==