Israel, Bananas, and Competence

Lucky for Jeff Goldberg: he's spending the day hanging out with Israeli generals, albeit for an unrelated story. One of them offered up his perceptive analysis of the Israeli PR predicament:

"Does everybody in the world think we're bananas?" He did not let me respond before he said, "Wait, I know the answer: The whole world thinks we're bananas." I asked this general if this was a good thing or a bad thing. After all, Nixon seemed bananas and he achieved great things internationally. So did Menachem Begin. This is what the general said, however: "It's one thing for people to think that you're crazy, but it's bad when they think you're incompetent and crazy, and that's the way we look."