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Trump will return ancient artifacts to Israel Antiquities Authority – report

A Wall Street Journal report explains how the items got to Mar-a-Lago in the first place, noting that everything had been done with transparency. 

By World Israel News Staff

Former U.S. President Donald Trump said he will return a set of ancient lamps to the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported Thursday.

Israeli officials have reportedly been struggling to reclaim artifacts that were intended for a White House exhibition but ended up at Mar-a-Lago.

The artifacts, a collection of ceramic oil lamps, were loaned in 2019 for a White House exhibition that never took place due to bureaucratic issues, according to a report earlier this week in Haaretz.

“These historic items were presented by a representative of the Israeli Antiquities Authority with the full support of the organization,” the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) said in an article explaining how the lamps got to Mar-a-Lago in the first place, according to information from an unidentified Trump spokesman.

Jewish Republican donor Saul Fox, who is also a large donor to the IAA, reportedly presented the artifacts to the former president at the 2019 White House Chanukah party in gratitude for his pro-Israel policies. Fox expected them to remain a “permanent exhibition of Israel’s national treasures” in Trump’s custody and ignored an urgent message from the IAA director that there had been a “miscommunication” and that the lamps must be returned, WSJ reported.

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The former director of the IAA told the news outlet that “Saul Fox had operated transparently,” the report said.

Trump said that he will return the items.