An Ancient Spoon Stirs Biden Administration Mischief Against Israel
An ostensibly minor incident a few days ago has provided devastating evidence of the brainwashed malevolence within the Biden administration towards not just Israel but the Jewish people. In a ceremony at the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities in Bethlehem, the Department of Homeland Security’s investigative arm delivered to the Palestinian Authority a 2,700-year-old spoon dating from the Assyrian empire. The spoon, which is thought to have been used to load incense onto fires during rites dedicated to the Assyrian gods and the dead, was seized from the Jewish-American billionaire Michael Steinhardt as part of a criminal probe in New York. In a deal he struck to avoid prosecution, Steinhardt agreed in 2021 to turn over $70 million worth of stolen antiquities that the authorities claim were illegally acquired in Israel. Ivan J. Arvelo, a special agent in charge of U.S. Homeland Security Investigations in New York, described the transfer of the spoon to the P.A. as “the historic repatriation” of the artifact. In a similar effusive vein, George Noll, head of the U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs, called the spoon “an example of Palestinian cultural patrimony.” Another DHS official, Jeff Brannigan, declared, “This repatriation is representative of HSI’s commitment to ensuring the storied heritages of peoples around the world through the preservation and protection of cultural artifacts.” This is all utter garbage. It was not an act of repatriation, because the spoon never belonged to the “cultural patrimony” or “storied heritage” of a Palestinian people. There was no “Palestinian people” in antiquity. The “Palestinian people” didn’t exist at all until it was invented in the 1960s in a strategy to destroy Israel cooked up by Yasser Arafat, the Egyptian-born head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, in cahoots with the Soviet Union…