<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">The scene from Hebron – same old story.</figcaption></figure>



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This day in the world of 1996 – news from Hebron and the Middle East – News from Moscow and Boris Yeltsin – news from the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Starting with Hebron: Palestinian demonstrators burned American flags and stoned Israeli soldiers today after a Washington summit failed to meet Palestinian demands that Israel set a date for a troop pullback in Hebron and close a Jerusalem tourist tunnel.

Across the West Bank, Israel kept tanks and soldiers posted outside Palestinian towns to put down possible riots, but Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai told Israel radio that travel restrictions might be eased i if there is no new violence. For the past week, Palestinians in the West Bank have been barred by Israeli troops from leaving their communities, keeping workers from their jobs. On the hills outside Ramallah – where Palestinian police and Israeli troops fought armed battles last week Israeli snipers were set up in eight positions, and a tank stationed nearby. Tanks also remained outside the Palestinian town of Qalqilya.

– “We will stay this way as long as necessary,” Brig. Gen. Dovik Tal, a tank commander, said on Israeli army radio.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government praised the U.S. hosted summit in which Israel and the Palestinians agreed to resume negotiations Sunday at Erez, a border crossing between Israel and Gaza. Although no date was set for a Hebron withdrawal, Israeli newspapers said Netanyahu apparently gave President Clinton a target date. The withdrawal is six months overdue.

However, Communications Minister Limor Livnat said the prime minister stood tough, and “did not commit to a timetable for leaving Hebron, but rather a timetable for talks.” Any pullback would anger Netanyahu’s right-wing supporters. Israeli legislator Hanan Porat, whose National Religious Party is part of the government coalition, said deploying armed Palestinians in Hebron would spell disaster.

Meanwhile in Moscow; Facing angry legislators in parliament Wednesday, national security chief Alexander Iphed defended his peace accord in Chechnya against accusations it might lead to Russia’s disintegration. *All talk that Russia is leaving Chechnya in shame is sacrilege,” Lebed told the State Duma. parliament’s lower house. “Russia is not leaving, it has only put an end to its shame,” Lebed was immediately challenged by Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov who told the lawmakers the peace deal amounted to “high treason.” Kulikov’s outburst signaled high-level opposition to the agreement lebed signed with the rebels in August. President Boris Yeltsin has voiced only lukewarm support for it. The Duma, controlled by Communists, nationalists and other hard-liners, was meeting for the first time after its summer recess. It immediately demanded an accounting on Chechnya from Lebed and used the opportunity to lash out at the ailing Yeltsin. Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov repeated his view that Yeltsin’s illness has left the country rudderless. Lebed said 80,000 to 100,000 people have died in Chechnya, higher than his earlier estimate of 80,000. He said 3,826 Russian soldiers have been killed. 17,892 wounded and 1,906 are missing in action.

And finally – Autumn is Nobel season in the Swedish capital, and every Thursday afternoon since the beginning of September a small group of men and women has been meeting in secret in an ornate 18th century hall to discuss who will receive the world’s top honor for literature.

But now, suddenly, comes a noted Swedish man of letters lobbing a bombshell into this bastion of tradition and taste. Swedish Academy member Knut Ahnlund has announced that he has stopped taking part in the Thursday sessions, to protest what he called the academy’s “Freemason tendencies.” He cites several grievances and points an accusing finger at the academy’s leader, Secretary Sture Allen, whom he calls an “autocrat.” Ahnlund says he would return to the conference table only if Allen were to depart. These signs of a power struggle among the world’s foremost arbiters of literary taste have shocked Sweden, where Ahnlund has long been seen as one of the academy’s most knowledgeable literary critics. Specializing in literature from French-, Spanish- and English speaking countries, he also reads Polish and Russian and has served the academy for 26 years. His departure is especially remarkable because it follows, by just a few years, the withdrawals of three other respected members from the 18-seat academy. Lars Gyllensten, a much-admired Swedish novelist, critic and professor of microscopic anatomy, along with the crime novelist Kerstin Ekman, dropped out in 1989 to protest the academy’s refusal to lend its support to British writer Salman Rushdie, in hiding since then because of a death sentence issued by the Iranian clergy. The writer Werner Aspenstroem took advantage of this gesture to say he wanted to leave too, not over Rushdie but because he disliked working on committees. The four resignation announcements have thrown new light onto a quirk of Swedish Academy life: Like the priesthood, technically it cannot be abandoned. Because of a strict interpretation of its organizational statutes, the Swedish Academy has refused to recognize the defections.

And along with the seemingly never ending story of Hebron and the Middle East, that’s just a small slice of what happened, this October 3rd in 1996 as presented by The CBS World News Roundup.

The post Hebron – Chechnya – The Nobel Prize – October 3, 1996 appeared first on Past Daily: A Sound Archive of News, History And Music.