Donald Trump will give Israel back its historic oil lamps

According to Donald Trump, he will give the Israel Antiquities Authority back a set of historic oil lamps.

According to a Trump spokeswoman who was not named, “These historic items were presented by a representative of the Israeli antiquities authority with the full support of the organization,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

The office will speed up the return of the objects to the organization’s representative because they were presented as they were intended to be.

The declaration, which was released on Thursday, followed news last week in Haaretz that the Israel Antiquities Authority had been trying to get the lamps back for months without success.

The Journal quotes Saul Fox, the Jewish Republican contributor who handed Trump the costly antiques, as saying that he thinks they were destined to be in his possession.

The Israel Antiquities Authority received a request from California-based Fox, a significant donor to the organization, to give Trump the lamps at the White House Hanukkah celebration in 2019 as a token of gratitude for his support of Israel.

Fox said that the six lamps were not ready in time for the party because the State Department needed more time to review them.

Fox claimed that he paid a courier to deliver the lamps to him three months later.

According to what he told the Journal, he kept them in his home and “sort of forgot about it.” Fox was then asked to a dinner at Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s Florida resort, in 2021 by Trump.

For the lamps, Fox’s girlfriend created a presentation case. Fox received an urgent message from the director of the Israeli Antiquities Authority while he was at Mar-a-Lago, stating that there had been a “miscommunication” and that Fox needed to return the lamps.

Fox disregarded the warning and gave the lamps to Trump, claiming that while they were still the authority’s property, they were to serve as a “permanent exhibition of Israel’s national treasures” while in his care.

Fox opposed the authority’s order to return the lamps because he found it offensive. According to the Journal’s interview with the former director of the authority, who coordinated the shipping of the lamps, “Saul Fox operated transparently with the antiquities authority.”