As if Egypt and Israel did not have enough other problems, both countries were afflicted this week by huge swarms of locusts, some of them the size of small birds. Just three weeks before Passover for Jews, Israel’s locust invasion from Egypt recalled the eighth plague of biblical times, when the Pharaoh was punished for refusing to let the Israelite slaves go. Crops have been lost, and drivers all but blinded. But modern pesticides do seem to be blunting the attack.