Credit soundness affirmed. Israel can continue to finance its war. This month, S&P Global -- the company formerly known as Standard & Poor's', the bond rating giant -- affirmed the long and short term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings of the state of Israel at A/A-1. Of course, since they aren't idiots, the authors of this report observed that prolonged or intensified military conflict can negatively impact fiscal soundness and balance-of-payments performance. So the resumed military operations in Gaza and 'ongoing military activities' in Lebanon and Syria, could lead to a ratings deterioration. The time for that deterioration is not yet, though. But the report also says that Israel has strong fiscal fundamentals (which means it has a sufficiently productive economy to create tax debtors and it is good at collecting from them), which have gifted it with a net external asset position and a current account su...