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Giving Jews plenty of time to prepare for the Sukkot holiday, three months away, Egypt has announced that it will not export lulavs this year.

With all the ballyhoo about the alleged "existential" conflict between Israel and Iran, you might think that the news that Iran is trying to send an aid boat to Gaza, in the wake of the Israeli military attack on the Turkish aid boat that killed eight Turks and an American, would occasion a great wailing and gnashing of teeth in the American media.

An Israeli police officer was shot dead in the West Bank on Monday and two more were injured in the first fatal shooting attack on Israeli security personnel in the area in more than a year.

First came the clash at Davos in January 2009, when Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan walked off the stage after an angry exchange with the Israeli president, Shimon Peres during a panel discussion on Gaza at the World Economic Forum. Then came the surprise uranium deal with Tehran, undermining Western pressure on Iran to come clean about its nuclear program, followed by the Israeli assault on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, which sailed under Turkish flags, sending shockwaves throughout the world.

One of Israel's best-known authors and outspoken peace activists, David Grossman, is to receive this year's prestigious German Book Trade Peace Prize, the association said Thursday.
Read more: See Under: Love, Peace Prize, Authors, David Grossman, Israel,

As a native of Maine, Scott Hamann's account of the Gaza aid flotilla debacle immediately caught my eye when scanning the news. Hamman, a South Portland video producer, describes his experience in harrowing terms, leaving his audience of readers in little doubt that Israeli soldiers are no better than the Hamas terrorists who fire rockets at Israel's civilian communities.

Last year, Lauren Rosenberg was walking across a four-lane highway in Utah when she was hit by a car. Now she's suing Google for $100,000 in damages because Google Maps told her to take that route.

The lawsuit is patently absurd. If she had come to an edge of a cliff that Google Maps said was the shore of a lake, would she have dived in? Honestly, people will do anything to avoid the difficult task of taking responsibility for their own actions.

What do chocolate, cookies, A4 paper, potato chips, cumin, toys, jelly, nuts, dried fruit, nutmeg, and goats have in common?

It's a tricky one. If you're a moderate, they have absolutely nothing in common. But if you are a hard-line Israeli politician, they are all potentially dangerous goods that could threaten Israel's security. Well, it seems that that side of the political spectrum has won the argument, as all the above are items that the Israeli government has prohibited from entering Gaza.

Over the weekend, Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to Washington, rejected calls for an international investigation into his country's raid of the now-infamous flotilla headed for Gaza.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was less definitive on Sunday: "I told the United Nations secretary general that an investigation of the facts has to be carried out responsibly and objectively," he said.

In that case, I've got the perfect man for the job.

Arlen Specter.