The Moody’s report cited an expected slackening in Israel’s economic growth as well as the economic and security challenges facing the country as the reason for the negative rating. The report also said that there is a problem with the asset quality of Israeli banks due to a high concentration of domestic lending to large corporations.
“The negative outlook reflects the projected slowdown in economic growth and the country’s challenging operating environment which will continue over the 12-18 month outlook period,” Moody’s wrote in a press release.
The agency tempered its downgrade, though, saying Jerusalem had proven itself capable of weathering economic storms before.
“Moody’s acknowledges that Israel’s economy has proven resilient to repeated shocks in the past,” it wrote.
I wish the rating agencies would get on the banks here for fleecing the small consumer. This is the only country in the world where the banks make most of their money on family accounts like yours and mine.
Saudi hackers claim to publish 400,000 Israelis' credit card details online; UPDATE: Some non-Israelis too
Saudi hackers claim to have posted the personal credit information of 400,000 Israelis online. While there is some element of truth to the boast, the number is exaggerated.
They called on surfers to use the details in order to purchase goods online. "It will be so fun to see 400,000 Israelis stand in line outside banks and offices of credit card companies to complain that their cards had been stolen. To see banks shred 400,000 cards and reissue them. To see that Israeli cards are not accepted around the world, like the Nigerian cards," the hackers wrote.
The hackers, who called the cyber attack a "gift to the world for the new year," broke into the "ONE" sports website and announced they had leaked the information. They also attached a link to a webpage from which the data could be downloaded.
The Bank of Israel has announced that the reported Saudi theft of Israeli credit card numbers is under investigation.
An Israeli student claimed that the files released by the Saudi hackers contained only 18,000 unique entries, not 400,000 as the hackers claimed. The files allegedly contained credit card information, including security numbers which allow credit card holders to purchase goods online, as well as phone numbers and addresses.
Ofer Schwartz, a mathematics and computer science major at the Technion, found that while the files do contain 400,000 entries, many of them are repeated several times.
Most of the Israelis whose names appeared in the leaked files confirmed they contained their actual addresses and phone numbers, but the majority said the credit card details were false. A few said the credit card details were accurate but that their cards had already expired.
The list includes many Israeli celebrities, including athletes and cultural figures. A number of them told Ynet the leaked credit card numbers were not theirs.
The file was eventually removed from the Internet. "ONE" said its computer experts neutralized the cyber attack "within minutes."
That might explain why I cannot find the list anywhere to see if I am on it (I have never bought anything from ONE). The website on which the list was posted is here. The original post from the hacker is here. The key lines are:
An Israeli was able to dissect the list - his findings in Hebrew are here.
In any event, it doesn't sound like there are going to be 400,000 Israelis lined up to cancel their credit cards anytime soon.
UPDATE 10:33 AM
I hadn't had time to read that last link before, but if you're abroad, the last two items on the list may interest you.
One of the files is something called Judaism.txt and includes "details of 65 credit card holders, including personal and credit card details (all current). Most of these people are US residents and many have explicitly Jewish names. They do not include any Israeli residents. It may refer to people who made orders from this website (my speculation - not in the original).
The other is called tbldonate.htm and includes 1,616 names and credit card details of people who donated to https://www.schneersoncenter.org/ between March 7 and November 18, 2011.
The silver lining in the cloud of the US's credit rating being lowered is that for some strange reason, the dollar has taken off against the Shekel, something people like me who get paid in dollars have been hoping for months would happen. We're back over NIS 3.50 to the dollar for the first time in a long time (and to think I thought I was amazingly lucky to convert at 3.489 last Thursday).
Above is the list of 18 countries whose credit ratings are AAA (Hat Tip: Instapundit). I would consider New Zealand's credit rating to be better than the US as well, because it is stable. For the record, Israel's Foreign Long Term credit rating is A and it's Local Long Term credit rating is AA-. Neither of those has been adjusted since November 2007. Maybe it's time to raise them?
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
Moody's, the US credit rating agency, has downgraded Israel's banking system's outlook from stable to negative. 
