Abbas: Israel Promised to Release More Prisoners

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas welcomes a prisoner wearing a Hamas headband after the release of hundreds of prisoners from Israeli jails on October 18, 2011, in Ramallah.

Abbas Momani / AFP / Getty Images

As Palestinians exult in the release of 477 prisoners from Israeli jails, and anticipate the arrival of the 550 more due to be freed in December under the terms of the bargain Hamas brokered for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas is pushing Israel to release even more, citing what he terms a secret promise from a previous prime minister.

Abbas tells TIME in an interview that the promise was made by Ehud Olmert, who preceded Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister, and spent months negotiating the details of a potential peace deal with Abbas before being forced from office three years ago. Abbas says the subject of prisoners came up after Olmert twice arranged the release of several hundred prisoners as a good will gesture in advance of peace talks. "And after that I asked him to release some big number," Abbas says. (Press reports at the time mentioned 2,000.) "He said now I cannot because we have a Shalit deal, but I promise you when we conclude Shalit and everything is okay, I will give you, not the same number, not the same quality, more. I think that he repeated it twice in different meetings.

"But," Abbas adds, "he asked me, please keep it secret, confidential between us, because we don't want to affect the deal with Shalit. I said, okay, okay, I will keep it. Now the deal is over, and we will ask them to fulfill their promises." Olmert's negotiations for Shalit's release fell through but Abbas wants Netanyahu to keep his predecessor's promise. (see photos from the prisoner swap between Palestine and Israel.)

In an effort to nudge the process along, Abbas says he laid out the offer to the Obama administration on Wednesday, informing U.S. diplomat Daniel Rubinstein of the details during a meeting in Ramallah. As U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem, Rubinstein is the primary point of contact for Palestinian officials. Abbas says he is also one of two American diplomats who broached the possibility of prisoner releases as a "confidence building" measure Washington was offering to spark the resumption of peace talks.

"The American envoy David Hall, and the counsel general, Daniel Rubinstein, came six or seven months [ago] telling me that President Obama is willing to give you a confidence building measures to be fulfilled by Netanyahu," Abbas says. "I said what kind of confidence building measures? They said to help Gaza, to alleviate the siege around Gaza, to remove some of the roadblocks, to help you in the C area [portions of the West Bank entirely under Israeli control] and to release prisoners.

"What was my answer? No. Why? Because I knew the Israelis will put it on the table and start to negotiate it instead of the final status issues. But after that they returned back two or three times saying, please this is our offer. You have to appreciate it, you have to accept, because you don't' have to do anything. It is free of charge. It will not cost you anything. After the third time I said okay, let us start. Of course they didn't start, nothing happened." (See why the joy of Gilad Shalit's release is tempered by memories of an Intifadeh.)

Neither the American diplomats nor Olmert could be reached Wednesday night, the start of a religious holiday in Jerusalem. But Abbas' account illustrates the potency of the prisoner issue with the Palestinian public. The Shalit deal gave an immediate political boost to Hamas, the Islamist rival of the secular Fatah party Abbas leads. It was a deft political move that changed the subject, at least for a time, from admiration for Abbas' Sept. 23 speech requesting Palestinian statehood at the United Nations. On Tuesday, both the Gaza Strip, which the Islamist party controls, and Ramallah, a solidly Fatah city, were awash in the green flags of Hamas.

"Why not?" Abbas says. "They are celebrating a very big victory — granted by our neighbor." The neighbor is Israel, and the jab betrays his irritation that the Shalit deal boosted Hamas, whose charter calls for Israel's destruction, at the relative expense of Abbas' Palestinian Authority, the body committed to reaching a negotiated end to the conflict and the four-decade occupation of Palestinian territory by Israel troops. Abbas in fact goes on to say he's skeptical that Netanyahu will honor his predecessor's vow on prisoners, the leader of the conservative Likud Party having already declined to accept the positions Olmert negotiated during months of secret peace negotiations with Abbas.

"Of course I doubt that Netanyahu will do it," Abbas says, seated on a couch in his heavily guarded apartment in northern Ramallah. He shrugs. "But I will send to him a message within two or three days, to ask him whether he will accept or not. I'm not going to argue with him or not negotiate with him or to talk in details about it. Either, or. If he doesn't believe us, he can ask Mr. Olmert. He can turn back to the minutes, protocols — everything is in writing. Of course he didn't give us it in writing, but of course his colleagues write everything."

See photos of the five-year ordeal of Gilad Shalit.

See "Gilad Shalit and the End of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process."

What China Would Gain from Europe in Bailing Out Euro Zone

A Chinese paramilitary officer stands in front of the European Union flag outside the office of the E.U. delegation to China in Beijing on Oct. 28, 2011

In years to come, economists and historians might hark back to this week as the moment the balance of world power tipped toward China. The signs have been there for while, but the symbolism is especially potent now, in the few days between yet another euro-zone crisis summit, held in Brussels on Oct. 26, and the Nov. 3-4 G-20 summit in Cannes, France. The reason for choosing this as the watershed is crudely financial: at the Brussels summit, European leaders made a previously unthinkable appeal for China to use its $3.2 trillion currency reserves to help dig the euro out of its debt hole. And while the euro zone is anxiously awaiting an answer, China — inscrutable about its intentions — is milking the moment.

China is being targeted as a potential investor as part of a complicated scheme agreed to at the summit to leverage Europe's bailout fund up to €1 trillion ($1.4 trillion), along with other potential outsiders like Russia, Brazil, Middle Eastern countries and the International Monetary Fund. On Oct. 27, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is hosting the Cannes G-20 gathering, phoned Chinese President Hu Jintao to seek backing. "If the Chinese, who have 60% of global reserves, decide to invest in the euro instead of the dollar, why refuse?" Sarkozy said after his call. "Why would we not accept that the Chinese have confidence in the euro zone and deposit a part of their surpluses in our funds or in our banks?" (See "Europe's Debt Crisis Agreement: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly.")

China can certainly spare the €100 billion ($140 billion) reportedly being discussed among officials. The real question is why China would want to plant it in a low-growth region like the euro zone. The bond-leverage scheme has already generated its share of criticism, and Greece's recently announced euro referendum only adds to the uncertainty and risk. The Chinese government's official news agency, Xinhua, cautioned in an editorial that "emerging economies should not be seen as Europe's Good Samaritans."

Yet there are still strong reasons that China might park some of its funds in the bailout scheme or some other bond offering. One is that it is already heavily involved: a quarter of China's currency reserves are thought to be held in euros, and Beijing has been a regular buyer of euro-zone bailout bonds in the past. Over the past year, the Chinese government has made several pledges to purchase European debt issues, both at the bilateral level with indebted countries — including Portugal, Greece and Hungary — and toward the euro zone as a whole. (See why the euro hasn't been fixed yet.)

China also has a vested interest in shoring up its biggest trading partner, with which it had bilateral dealings worth €363 billion ($503 billion) last year, almost 10% of the total global-trade flow. China's growth prospects depend heavily on Europe's consumers, whose average per capita GDP is about $32,500, compared with about $4,500 in China. A weaker euro would make Chinese exports more expensive for Europeans. And maintaining the euro as a reserve currency aids China's efforts to counterbalance the U.S. dollar and create a multipolar global economic system.

But significantly, this hands China a remarkable opportunity to extract concessions, both economic and political. In September, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao implied an effective quid pro quo when he asked Europeans to "put their houses in order," almost as a condition for China's "extending a helping hand." (See pictures of the global financial crisis.)

In trading terms, this might be reflected in the recognition of China's status as a "market economy" when it comes to European Union trade sanctions, a measure that could boost exports otherwise hindered by tariffs. And since the E.U. currently has some 55 anti-dumping measures in place against China, individual member states might also be pushed to ease their stance on future sanctions. Other trade issues might slip from the agendas, to the chagrin of European exporters, who regularly gripe about Chinese rules on foreign ownership, subsidies reserved for Chinese firms, lack of access to the public-procurement market and selective enforcement of intellectual-property rules.

These concerns were already raised in July by the European Council on Foreign Relations, which published a paper titled "The Scramble for Europe" on China's "game-changing" economic presence in Europe. It warned that if China became too involved in major financial, investment and public issues, it would leave the Europeans little leverage to improve their access to the same sectors in China, which are mostly closed or controlled.

The political implications are potentially even more troubling for Europe, which has long considered it a right, even a responsibility, to criticize China on issues like human rights and environmental protection. It could mean, for example, that the E.U. lifts its ban on arms sales to China, imposed in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, or that the Dalai Lama receives fewer invitations to meet European leaders. Fredrik Erixson, director of the European Centre for International Political Economy, a Brussels-based think tank, says that even if there are no formal trade-offs, Beijing could expect generous favors from Europe after years of what it considers intrusive interference. "China wants something more: international recognition in one way or the other, or a Europe that in Beijing's view stops poking its nose in internal Chinese politics," Erixson says. (See pictures of China's investments in Africa.)

At Cannes, Chinese leader Hu will doubtless refrain from any early commitment on the euro-bailout scheme, while soaking up the flattery from Europe's pleading leaders. But he will be aware that as China consolidates its emergence as a world player, any investment risks in the program would be a small price to pay for the wave of European goodwill it would generate.

Is it time to admit the euro has failed?

See 25 people to blame for the financial crisis.

Why Israel's Netanyahu May Prefer a Waltz With Hamas to a Tango With Abbas

Tuesday's milestone prisoner exchange does not, repeat does not portend a new peace process between Israel and Hamas. Neither side is even seeking that goal: If the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is unable to agree peace terms with the moderate President Mahmoud Abbas, it's hardly about to seek a "grand bargain" to end the conflict with the more intractable leadership of Hamas, which Netanyahu sees as a mortal enemy. Hamas, even though its leadership has come to define its immediate goal as establishing a Palestinian state on the 1967 lines,
has no interest in replacing Abbas in a peace process whose terms it has long rejected. Their existential conflict notwithstanding, however, Hamas and Israel may see mutual benefit in a liaison of convenience of the sort seen in the prisoner exchange, in which Abbas was an ineffectual spectator.

Netanyahu came to power in 2009 arguing that there was no prospect for completing the peace process that had been stalled since January of 2001. A grand bargain with the Palestinians simply couldn't be done, he insisted: Abbas was unwilling or unable to accept Israel's terms, and he was too weak, politically, to sell any compromise deal to his own people. Abbas' term of office had expired but he dared not risk new elections; his parliament was actually dominated by Hamas which had won the last vote; and he had no authority in Gaza since his forces were evicted by Hamas in 2007. Rather than seek a political settlement with Abbas, Netanyahu argued, Israel's focus should be on "economic peace" -- easing up on Israel's stranglehold to allow the West Bank economy to grow and provide a basis for peace at some point in the future. (Gaza would remain under an economic stranglehold until its population was willing to topple Hamas.) While Netanyahu's logic may have tracked for a time with the efforts of the U.S.-picked Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to build Palestinian institutions -- and with Abbas' hopes of hobbling Hamas -- both Abbas and Fayyad insisted that  statehood and an end to the occupation remained their key objective.

And while the incoming Obama Administration had tacitly accepted the "economic war" on Gaza, it made clear that Washington expected more than "economic peace" in the West Bank. So Netanyahu went to Plan B, rhetorically accepting the principle of a two-state solution but setting such preconditions as to ensure that Israel would not, in practice, be required to implement it. Abbas has known all along that Netanyahu won't concede the minimum
necessary for a Palestinian leader to conclude a peace agreement, but he'd hoped the Obama Administration would supply the leverage required to change Israel's calculations. That illusion was shattered by Obama's cave-in to Netanyahu on the U.S. President's insistence that Israel halt settlement construction outside its 1967 borders, as required by President Bush's 2002 "Roadmap". Having been left dangling by Obama, Abbas turned to the United Nations, hoping to create negotiating leverage there through establishing international recognition of Palestinian sovereignty over the 1967 territories.

The U.N. bid, which put Abbas on a collision course with Israel and the Administration, remains in a kind of limbo, with the U.S. still hoping to sidestep it by restarting negotiations on the terms already rejected by Abbas and trying to frustrate his efforts to make headway at the U.N.

But Hamas had also, for its own reasons, opposed Abbas' U.N. bid, seeing it as nothing more than an attempt by the Palestinian to boost his own leverage before returning to the same old negotiating table, rejoining a process that, as Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan put it, "has proved futile over the past twenty years." Instead, Hamas insists that Abbas operate on the basis of a national consensus achieved via Fatah-Hamas reconciliation, and that the Palestinian focus be on pressuring Israel to end the occupation. A state could only be created once that occupation was ended, Hamdan warned.

The prisoner swap, hailed as a victory for Hamas' stubborn resistance, has given the organization
a desperately needed bump in its approval rating among Palestinians. Even then, its popularity remain in the doldrums, dragged down by the misery of Gaza. A recent opinion poll published by An Najah National University in Nablus found that while 67% of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza believed the prisoner deal would boost Hamas' popularity, at the same time, only 8% said they would vote for a Hamas candidate in a presidential election -- compared with 27% for a Fatah candidate. More striking, perhaps was the fact that 22% said they would not bother to vote at all, while a further 20% were undecided. So Hamas has plenty of incentive to try and regain the support that saw it win the 2006 legislative election in the West Bank and Gaza.

And the changing regional situation, in which Hamas may lose its sanctuary in Syria, makes the organization more inclined to please such potential future hosts as Egypt, Turkey and Qatar, all of whom see themselves as mediating a credible peace independent of the failed U.S. effort rather than as joining a "resistance front" with Iran and Syria.

The afterglow of the prisoner release will fade soon enough, which is why Hamas' priority now is to improve the quality of life in Gaza. Currently, it's struggling even to pay salaries there, with Iranian financial support having been withdrawn over Hamas' refusal to condemn the Syrian rebellion. Other sources of funding may well be found, but Hamas' priority going forward will be to ease and end the Israeli blockade of Gaza -- an issue reportedly addressed in the prisoner exchange deal.

The Wall Street Journal reports that in the course of the Shalit talks, Netanyahu had agreed to allow the reconstruction of Gaza, adding that the Israeli envoy to the talks had spoken of the Prime Minister's desire to see an economic boom in Gaza. The Journal quoted government officials admitting that the Israeli government planned to follow a policy of "growing openness" towards Gaza.

"Economic peace" in Gaza, then?

Despite its fundamental antagonism for Israel, Hamas' political fortunes may depend on its ability to secure the well-being of Gazans, and that certainly creates an incentive for maintaining its cease-fire with Israel. Egypt, which took the lead in mediating the Shalit deal, also benefits from at once easing conditions in Gaza and also demonstrating its ability to maintain security.

And for Israel, allowing Hamas to rebuild Gaza carries little immediate downside, but could help reverse its isolation by addressing longstanding demands of Turkey and Qatar for an end to the blockade. And, if allowing Hamas to make gains weakens President Abbas -- well, the Israelis weren't planning on doing a deal with him, anyway, and his U.N. strategy has created diplomatic problems for Netanyahu.

Israel has a long-established tradition of playing rivals off against one another, dealing with the one deemed most challenging at any moment: In the late '80s, it was actually Israeli policy to allow Hamas to emerge as a challenger to Yasser Arafat's Fatah in the West Bank and Gaza. During the '90s,  Israel repeatedly between a focus on negotiating with the Palestinians and on negotiating with Syria, using each option as leverage against the other. And there was even a period after his 1996 election as Prime Minister during which Netanyahu reached out discreetly to Iran in the hope of improving relations.

So, cooperation between Hamas and Israel on easing conditions in Gaza is not a dance of peace, but rather of circumstance. Neither side may have much faith in Abbas and the peace process, but the deeper reality of the occupation will surely have them stomping on one another's feet -- or worse -- soon enough. Neither partner has any illusions about the other. Nor can the Gaza situation be considered in isolation: Hamas, remember, is a West Bank organization as well as a Gaza one. Also, the prisoner exchange could spur Abbas to act on his vow to to raise economic pressure and non-violent protest action for an end to the occupation -- as Palestinian civil society groups have been doing for some time. Indeed, the strongest impetus coming from ordinary Palestinians, right now, is for Hamas and Abbas to put aside their differences and create a unity government to forge a common strategy to end the occupation. If they do, neither Palestinian faction is likely to be dancing with Netanyahu for very long.

A Watery Solar System Offers Clues to Earth's Creation

An artist's rendering illustrates an icy planet-forming disk around a young star called TW Hydrae, in the constellation Hydra

If E.T. is out there, it may be a lot easier to find him than we thought — mostly because there are a lot more places for him to live. Scientists looking for life (or at least earthlike life) have always obeyed a simple rule: follow the water. Biology is a wet process, after all — and generally the wetter the better. Now, the Herschel Space Observatory has spotted an infant solar system 175 million light years from Earth that seems fairly awash in primordial water. The finding suggests many more such systems may be out there — and offers tantalizing clues about how our own biologically rich world began as well.

Herschel, which was launched by the European Space Agency in 2009, hovers in space 930,000 miles (1.5 million km) from Earth at what's known as a Lagrange point, a gravitationally quirky spot where the pull of the planet Earth and the sun balance out. This allows a spacecraft placed just so to remain locked in place on the far side of the planet, shielded from solar interference. In the case of Herschel, that's important, because the readings it takes are exquisitely precise, scanning the skies in the far infrared and submillimeter wavelengths. (See how earthlike planets may be less common than we think.)

Turning its gaze toward a star known as TW Hydrae — a comparatively cool orange dwarf just 10 million years old — the telescope recently found a vast disk of dusty material moving in a solar orbit about 200 times as far from the star as Earth is from our own sun. Dust is just dust in the visible spectrum, but operating in the extreme infrared, Herschel was able to spot the surprising signal of water — lots and lots of water — created as ultraviolet light from the star knocked individual water molecules free from the traces of ice that cling to the dust grains.

"These are the most sensitive [infrared] observations to date," said NASA project scientist Paul Goldsmith, who collaborates with the European investigators in analyzing Herschel findings. "It is a testament to the instrument builders that such weak signals can be detected." (See how Venus may have once had water.)

What struck Goldsmith and the others was not just the vast quantity of water ice surrounding TW Hydrae, but also its location. Water halos have been found in the warm inner reaches of young solar systems before, but the proximity of the solar fires usually blasts the vapor farther into space where it gets locked up as ice in outer planets and moons. That's what happened in our own solar system, and helps explain why Mercury, Venus and Mars are so dry and the distant gas giants are so icy.

What that model doesn't explain, of course, is how Earth got so wet. One of the prevailing theories has long been that incoming comets crashed into our planet, carrying water ice with them. That scenario became even more plausible as a result of two studies earlier this month — one that found that comets in our solar system carry the same chemical signature as the water in Earth's oceans; and another that discovered what amounts to a hailstorm of comets striking a planet circling the Eta Corvi, a bright star visible in our northern hemisphere. What's happening out there could have easily happened here.

The new findings push the knowledge frontier further since the colder region where the TW Hydrae vapor disk was found is exactly where comets could more easily form, but where the raw materials for that to happen had not been seen until now. Says Herschel astronomer Michiel Hogerheijde of the Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands: "Our observations of this cold vapor indicate enough water exists in the disk to fill thousands of Earth's oceans."

None of this means that TW Hydrae will necessarily give rise to a garden spot like Earth. Water is a necessary ingredient for life as we know it, and comets are handy couriers, but a lot of other tumblers have to fall just right for biology to take hold. Still, if astronomical history — not to mention simple arithmetic — suggests one thing, it's that what happens in one spot in the cosmos has a pretty fair chance of being repeated at least a few times in the infinitely vast spaces beyond. The possibility that that kind of repetition includes life is beginning to seem more compelling than ever.

Read about scientists finding a watery new planet.

See iconic images of Earth from space.

The Unthinkable: Could Greece Actually Benefit from Ditching the Euro?

Talk about drama. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou emerged from an emergency meeting on Wednesday evening with a bombshell: Greece will have to decide if it wants to remain in the European monetary union. Merkel and Sarkozy suspended all further bailout funds until that fateful choice is made.

What a shocker. The whole idea of a member of the euro zone bolting the union has been completely taboo, even as a debt crisis has raged through Europe for two years. There isn't even any mechanism in place through which a country can exit the monetary union. The fact that this possibility has even been mentioned is a major break with the past that leaves the future very uncertain.

What happens now? Hard to say. It seemed that a referendum Papandreou had called for on Monday to seek public approval of Greece's participation in the latest euro zone bailout scheme, agreed to last week at a summit of European leaders, would be transformed into a vote on the country's continued membership in the monetary union itself. But events in Athens are changing rapidly and unpredictably. Papandreou may lose a confidence vote in parliament on Friday as his supporters melt away over his referendum plan. That raises the possibility of the Greek government falling and possibly a new election being held. Greece's future in the euro zone will remain an unknown as long as the country's domestic politics remain in turmoil.

Yet this whole amazing series of events has raised an important question: Would Greece be better off in or out of the monetary union?

The conventional wisdom has always been that Greece's departure from the euro zone would be a complete calamity. If Greece bolted, it would lose its European bailout and most likely default, sending shockwaves through Europe's banking system and global financial markets. The Greek banking sector would likely collapse, while the government, frozen out of capital markets, might even be unable to pay its bills. For the euro zone, Greece's defection would raise the specter of a cascading series of departures if other weak economies, also suffering in the debt crisis, chose to follow Athens's example. To sum up, it could get ugly.

But there is another, less terrifying scenario. By leaving the euro, Greece would lose its bailout money – but it would also regain control over its economic future. By returning to its own currency, Athens could depreciate its way to better competitiveness, something the country simply can't do as part of the euro zone. Rather than suffering under German-imposed reforms and retrenchment, Greece could press forward with a drastic restructuring of its national debt, a step the leaders of the euro zone have been anxious to avoid. None of this means the process won't be painful – Greeks will have to endure years of austerity measures and reform whatever currency they use. But departing the euro zone might at the same time give the country a better shot at halting its economic free fall and returning to healthy growth, at least in a more reasonable period of time.

And the euro zone might gain from a Greek exit as well. Those tens of billions thrown at Greece in bailouts could then be redirected to recapitalize banks, shore up Italy and Spain and protect the core of the monetary union. How would global financial markets react? Hard to predict. The exodus of a country from the euro zone would be unprecedented and destabilizing. But then again, Greece's exit would not be surprising to anyone who hasn't been stranded on a South Pacific isle for the past two years. That suggests the impact might not be as dramatic as many fear, especially if Europe acts fast to back up its banks and defend the remaining euro zone member states.

In many ways, Greece is like a contestant on the old game show Let's Make a Deal. The country has a choice of two doors – one that leads it out of the euro and on its own; one that keeps it a part of Europe and its great experiment in integration. We can only guess what is behind those doors, and there is no way of knowing for certain which door is best to open. Greece could end up with a shiny new Cadillac. Or a year's supply of canned tuna. It's not a choice I'd want to make. I wish them luck.

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Will Occupy Wall Street Reach India, One of the World's Most Unequal Countries?

India's main opposition party, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stage a protest against corruption in Indore, India, October 2, 2011. (Photo: Sanjeev Gupta / EPA)

In India mass, non-violent protest is not only a founding national principle; it is a highly developed art form. Any journalist working here must quickly figure out the difference between a dharna (sit-down protest) and a bandh (a general strike), and learn the peculiar conventions of the "fast unto death": every hunger strike must include the manufactured drama of supporters visiting the faster to plead with him, on camera, to break his fast; when he does, cue the symbolism. (The anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare broke his 13-day fast earlier this year by drinking coconut water offered to him by  two little girls—one Muslim, one Dalit—to emphasize the inclusiveness of his movement.)

So why hasn't Occupy Wall Street spread to India yet? India has its own version of Wall Street—Dalal Street in Mumbai—and staggering inequalities of wealth. And yet the protests have so far gotten only as close as Hong Kong and Singapore. The Wall Street Journal reports that there is a group called Occupy Mumbai, but even it is directing its protests at politicians, not bankers. Dinesh Thakkar, head of Angel Broking, one of India's largest stock brokerage houses, reasons in an interview with the Hindu newspaper that India hasn't fully embraced capitalism, so it isn't yet an object of public anger:

"Caught between socialism and capitalism, India does not provide fertile conditions for mass resentment against capital markets....The awareness about capital markets is low even among the educated Indians which makes it a non entity in their lives. So there is no connect between an anti-capitalist movement and the daily grind of an aam-aadmi [the common man]."

It's an interesting analysis, particularly from a financial insider. And he is right about one thing: the vast majority of Indians live and work outside the formal economy, so the financial markets are much less important to them than, say, the price of petrol or the difficulty of getting a ration card, both of which are the responsibility of the state. That's why India's mass protest movement has channeled public anger mainly at the government.

That doesn't mean the Occupy Wall Street movement has left India untouched. It is getting lots of attention in the Indian press — India's largest circulation English-language daily, the Times of India, today floated the poll question, "Wall Street protest: Is it the beginning of the end of capitalism?" And the country's largest leftist party, the Communist Party (Marxist), is considering hitching itself to the 'Occupy' bandwagon to restore its faded popular appeal and credibility, according to a report in the Indian Express:

The ‘Occupy Wall Street' movement that is spreading around the globe has excited the CPM at a time when it is engaged in an exercise to redefine its ideological approach to keep pace with the changing times and counter the neo-liberal economic framework. It has decided to launch a campaign on issues that can appeal to the middle class besides the poor. Against the backdrop of the global agitation against corporate greed, the comrades felt it was time to “step up and broaden” the campaign against the “neo-liberal policies” in India. Assessing the impact of “globalisation” and prescribing credible policy alternatives besides stepping up its fight against imperialism were at the centre of the ideological resolution which the Politburo has finalised.

It's unlikely, though, that Occupy Wall Street will get to India via an established political party. The movement gets its energy from its spontaneity; trying to harness to a fixed political agenda is likely to drain its appeal. That is already happening to India's anti-corruption movement, which rode a wave of public sympathy this summer but since has devolved into a collection of competing egos and priorities. In the last week alone, one faction of the Anna Hazare movement's leadership claimed credit for defeating a Congress Party candidate in a state by-election while another faction quit over the "political turn" that the movement has taken. Meanwhile, a group of activists from Hazare's home village publicly complained about not getting an appointment with Congress Party scion Rahul Gandhi—sounding less like visionary reformers than ordinary political supplicants. That's a lesson the Occupy Wall Street movement might consider as it comes under increasing pressure to define its own policy agenda.

Hazare's movement has also failed to move beyond its lone demand for the establishment of a Lokpal—a new, indepenent, anti-corruption ombudsman—to look more closely at the ties between India's increasingly powerful industrial houses and the government. Many progressive activists, most notably Arundhati Roy, have criticized Hazare for letting corporations off the hook and, in fact, allowing them to co-opt the anti-government public mood to their benefit. Some observers have cast India's anti-corruption movement as an iteration of the indignados, a loosely defined Spanish protest ethos of which Occupy Wall Street is the latest. By that reasoning, the Hazare crowd would be enthusiastically "occupying" New Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai this week. That hasn't happened, and it isn't likely to. Indians may yet occupy Dalal Street — but it will take a new generation of protesters to do it.

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