An ivory spoon dating back 2,700 years that was recently repatriated to the Palestinian Authority from america has sparked a dispute with Israel’s recent far-right government over the cultural heritage within the occupied West Bank.
The clash brings into focus the political sensitivities surrounding archaeology within the Middle East, where Israelis and Palestinians each use ancient artifacts to support their claims over the land.
Israel’s ultranationalist heritage minister has ordered officials to look at the legality of the U.S. government’s historic repatriation of the artifact to the Palestinians earlier this month and is asking for annexing archaeology within the occupied West Bank.
The artifact — a cosmetic spoon product of ivory and believed to have been plundered from a site within the West Bank — was seized in late 2021 by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office as a part of a cope with the Latest York billionaire hedge fund manager Michael Steinhardt.
It was one in all 180 artifacts illegally looted and purchased by Steinhardt that he surrendered as a part of an agreement to avoid prosecution.
American officials handed an artifact over to the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities on Jan. 5 in what the U.S. State Department’s Office of Palestinian Affairs said was “the primary event of such repatriation” by the U.S. to the Palestinians.
Dozens of Steinhardt’s surrendered artifacts have already been repatriated to Italy, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Jordan, Libya and Israel. This spoon was the primary and only item ever to be repatriated to the Palestinians.
The repatriation coincided with the primary weeks of Israel’s recent government, which consists of ultranationalists who see the West Bank because the biblical heartland of the Jewish people and inextricably linked to the state of Israel.
Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu’s office said last week that the legality of the repatriation “is being examined by the archaeology staff officer with the legal counsel, which can examine all points of the matter, including the Oslo Accords that the U.S. has signed.”
The case underscores how archaeology and cultural heritage are intertwined with the competing claims of the Israelis and Palestinians within the decades-long conflict.
“Any artifact that we all know that it comes out illegally from Palestine, now we have the fitting to have it back,” said Jihad Yassin, director general of excavations and museums within the Palestinian Tourism and Antiquities Ministry. “Each artifact says a story from the history of this land.”
The ministry is an element of the Palestinian Authority, the federal government established as a part of the Oslo Accords within the Nineteen Nineties that exercises limited autonomy in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Those agreements between Israel and the Palestinians were imagined to include coordination on a raft of issues, including archaeology and cultural heritage.
However the agreements have largely unraveled. Yassin said that the archaeology committee has not met in around 20 years and that there may be virtually zero coordination between Israel and the Palestinians concerning antiquities theft prevention within the West Bank.
“We attempt to do our greatest to guard these archaeological sites, but we face difficulties,” he said.
Yassin said that around 60% of the West Bank’s archaeological sites are in territory under complete Israeli military control and that his ministry’s theft prevention employees “manage to regulate in a high percentage the looting” in areas under Palestinian Authority control.
Nonetheless, most of the illicit artifacts which have made their solution to Israel’s legal antiquities market were looted from the West Bank, he said.
Based on court documents, Steinhardt bought the ivory cosmetic spoon in 2003 from Israeli antiquities dealer Gil Chaya for $6,000. The artifact had no provenance — paperwork detailing where it got here from and the way it had entered the dealer’s inventory — but Chaya said the thing was from the West Bank town of El-Koum, which is under Palestinian Authority control.
One other artifact believed to have been looted from the identical town, a “Red Carnelian Sun Fish amulet (that) dates to circa 600 B.C.E.,” stays missing, in response to the DA’s office. Steinhardt has yet to locate the item, but whether it is found, it’s going to be repatriated to the Palestinians, the office said.
American authorities returned 28 objects to Israel last yr, not including three that were seized in place on the Israel Museum of Jerusalem. Seven others meant to be returned to Israel have yet to be found. Several of the items returned to Israel are believed to have been looted from the West Bank.
The Israel Antiquities Authority declined to comment on the artifact’s repatriation to the Palestinians.
Heritage Minister Eliyahu, a spiritual ultranationalist in Netanyahu’s government now accountable for the country’s Antiquities Authority, denies the existence of a Palestinian people.
Since taking office, he has accused the Palestinian Authority of committing “national terrorism” and “erasing heritage” at an archaeological site in a Palestinian-controlled area near the West Bank city of Nablus.
It stays unclear what impact, if any, a review by the ministry’s legal counsel could have. It appears unlikely Israel could confiscate the artifact from the Palestinians, but a legal opinion against the move could potentially complicate future repatriations.
Earlier this week, Eliyahu said he can be giving the Israel Antiquities Authority full control over archaeological sites, cultural heritage and theft prevention throughout the West Bank — a move that critics say would in effect apply Israeli law over occupied territory in breach of international law.
Currently, archaeological excavations and antiquities within the West Bank are managed by the Civil Administration’s archaeology staff officer, which is an element of the Defense Ministry. Israel has not formally annexed the West Bank, and the territory is treated as occupied and is governed under military law.
“All heritage on either side of the green line will earn full protection, at a world and scientific standard,” Eliyahu wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday. He said the state of Israel would “act in a uniform and skilled manner from the (Mediterranean) sea to the Jordan.”
Alon Arad, director of Israeli cultural heritage non-governmental organization Emek Shaveh, said that putting the Israel Antiquities Authority accountable for archaeology within the occupied territory was “activating Israeli law within the West Bank, which implies annexation.”
Eliyahu’s office declined repeated interview requests.
Yassin said that in the meanwhile, the artifact will remain on the ministry, where it’s going to be studied by one in all its archaeologists. Then, he said, it’s going to be displayed at one in all the West Bank’s museums.
“It’s not the just one,” Yassin said. “It’s the start.”