A leading Israeli pollster was under police protection Monday after a fire was set at the front door of her Tel Aviv apartment Sunday night.
An anonymous telephone caller to the newspaper Yediot Achronot credited an obscure group calling itself “Sicarii” with the arson.
The pollster, Dr. Nina Zemach, is a director of the Dahaf Co., one of the largest polling organizations in Israel.
Its latest survey, published last week, found that 53 percent of Israelis would favor negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organization.
The anonymous caller said his group would take much sterner measures against others “who raise the PLO’s prestige and lower the morale of Israelis.”
He launched into a long diatribe about the historic role of Sicarii — dagger-men of the Second Temple — in the revolt against Rome 2,000 years ago, the Yediot Achronot reporter said.
The damage to Zemach’s premises was minor.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
