Meretz candidate Sasson receives phone threat

Party No.7 compiled report advocating dismantling of illegal settlement outposts.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN
talia sasson 298 (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski [file])
talia sasson 298
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski [file])
Police have launched an investigation after a Hatnua Hahadasha-Meretz candidate received a telephone threat to her Mevaseret Zion home on Sunday evening. The daughter of Talya Sasson, who is ranked seventh on the party's list for the February 10 elections, answered the phone and was told by an anonymous caller, "We will hurt your mother." Sasson said the experience of being threatened was "extremely unpleasant," adding that she hoped she would remain safe. Sasson said she was unable to ascertain how concrete the threat to her physical safety was. Sasson is well-acquainted with threats to her life, having received threatening messages when she was employed as a state prosecutor, during which she composed a report in 2004 on unauthorized settler outposts in the West Bank. In her report, she described in detail how government ministries had worked to secure the standing of over a hundred such outposts. The Sasson Report was submitted to then prime minister Ariel Sharon and recommended the dismantling of the illegal outposts. In a statement issued by Meretz on Monday, the party expressed its support for Sasson, adding that "neither threats nor intimidation will terrorize the stance that Sasson expresses: The need to remove illegal outposts and to safeguard the rule of law." The statement also called on law enforcement agencies to bring the perpetrator to justice and to prevent an atmosphere of intimidation aimed at silencing individuals from expressing a legitimate political stance.