Eliyahu Sasson

MKs


Date of birth = 1902
Place of birth = Damascus, Syria
Year of Aliyah = 1927
Date of death = 8 October 1978
Place of death =
Knesset(s) = 6th, 7th
Party = Alignment
Former parties =
Gov't roles = Minister of Postal Services
Minister of Police|

Eliyahu Sasson ( _he. אליהו ששון, born 1902, died 8 October 1978) was an Israeli politician and minister.

Biography

Born in Damascus in Syria, Sasson studied at an Alliance School in his hometown and the Université Saint-Joseph in Beirut. [Amikam Nachmani, (1987) Israel, Turkey and Greece: Uneasy Relations in the East Mediterranean Routledge, ISBN 0714633216 p 4] He became a member of the Arab National Movement and edited a Jewish-Arab newspaper named "Al-Hayat". He made aliyah in 1927 and worked as an electrician, journalist and lecturer on Middle East affairs.

He began working in the political department of the Jewish Agency, serving as head of the Arab department between 1933 and 1948. A member of the Jewish delegation to the United Nations between 1947 and 1948 and at the ceasefire negotiations in 1949, he worked as director of the Middle East department of the Foreign Affairs Ministry between 1948 and 1950, before heading an office in Paris for contacts with Arab nations. He also served as the Israeli envoy to Turkey (1950-1952), an envoy and ambassador to Italy (1953-1960) and ambassador to Switzerland (1960-1961).

In 1961 he returned to Israel and was appointed Minister of Postal Services by David Ben-Gurion. He was elected to the Knesset in the 1965 elections, and retained his cabinet post until 2 January 1967, when he became Minister of Police. Although he was re-elected in 1969, he lost his ministerial post upon the formation of the new government. He lost his seat in the 1973 elections.

Footnotes

External links