Can you "fix" a reputation? It isn’t a kitchen sink, after all. But still, nations, like individuals, can make repairs, and if they play their cards right, they can mend their tarnished national image. A nation’s reputation is basically all it has: In its absence, neither its natural resources nor its place in the history of international relations could help it continue enjoying trustworthy partnerships.

An individual needs to admit the mistakes they made to fix their reputation. This rule also applies to nations: "We regret the actions we did; we won’t repeat them." As individuals, nations have to prove the value of their words through actions that would make other nations believe their sincerity.

Israel seems to be inching closer to ousting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from office. However, the reason is not that he dragged his country into committing the "crime of the crimes," with genocidal intent, by destroying and exiling the majority of a group of people because of their ethnic identity. Had Netanyahu not created the largest fire in the Middle East since the British started in 1916 by signing the Sykes-Picot agreement with France, the Israeli Supreme Court probably could not have had the guts to overturn the so-called judicial reform that gave Netanyahu's government impunity from judicial review. Netanyahu had agreed to curb the court’s authority of judicial review in exchange for the support of the Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power), a far-right political party that has been referred to as the Kahanist and anti-Arab terrorist group.

Not only that, but Netanyahu had also given Cabinet positions to all three members of the government. It’s Chairperson Itamar Ben-Gvir’s actions as the minister of national security since 2022 and his hate speeches since Israel’s military and political atrocity started after the Hamas raid on Israel towns and farms in the occupied territories. His speeches have been submitted in the "application" South Africa filed with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Dec. 29, 2023, accusing Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza. The 84-page South African document maintains that Israel has "intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnic ... group in the Gaza Strip." Ben-Gvir’s as well as Netanyahu’s actions and speeches clearly fit under the definition of genocide in the Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a signatory.

We’ll see what will happen in The Hague. Now the State of Israel will defend itself against the alleged violations of its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in relation to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. But Netanyahu’s will and courage to bypass the judicial review of the Supreme Court irked the court itself, and the court’s decision might have unpleasant results for him. On one hand, the Israeli people gradually began to see that the lack of proper security arrangements along the borders of the occupied Arab lands could have been intentional for a larger plan to wipe out the Gaza Strip that has definite borders, preventing the "occupy-kill-settle" policy of the Zionists. According to a poll published last week by the Israeli newspaper Maariv, 48% of Israelis express a preference for Knesset member Benny Gantz, leader of the National Unity Party, as prime minister, while only 34% believe that Netanyahu is suitable for his position.

On the other hand, Netanyahu is about to face the resumption of his long-running trial on numerous corruption charges, after the annulation of his infamous judicial reform! A court in west Jerusalem is set to start hearing the case, which is focused on several corruption charges against Netanyahu, according to reports in the media.

Netanyahu has been charged with fraud, bribery and breach of trust in three cases filed in 2019, known as Case 1000, 2000 and 4000. In Case 1000, Netanyahu, along with his wife Sara Netanyahu, is accused of receiving gifts, including champagne and cigars, from prominent Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan and Australian billionaire businessperson James Packer in return for political favors.

Dance with the devil

Netanyahu chose to shake hands with the devil, and now he is about to wake up in his political hell. Either way, he will probably go to jail in his country, or find himself in a cell in a Hague prison next to Bosnian Serb politicians who were tried and convicted of genocide, with many counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal, during the Yugoslav Wars.

It is no longer easy to save your neck by claiming that it was a war and that you cannot count paunches in a fight. Now we can! There is no defense of "collateral damage"; you have to avoid harming non-belligerent innocent civilians even if you are following terrorists. You cannot order people to relocate inside their country so that you can bomb the "terrorists" supposedly hiding among the civilians. All these are now not only war crimes but also genocide.

Gantz, an Israeli politician and retired army general serving as minister without portfolio in the War Cabinet, warned Netanyahu to choose between unity or playing politics, as cracks widened in the War Cabinet. Gantz is seemingly preparing his country for the "post-Netanyahu" period in which the Israeli people would have to distance themselves from Ben-Gvir’s and Netanyahu’s anti-Arab rhetoric.

Israel, years ago, signed the two-state solution that would restore the imbalance created by the absence of a Palestinian state. Israel’s re-embrace of the idea of Palestine with definite borders would immediately end the Zionists’ "occupy-kill-settle" policy.

John J. Mearsheimer, a political science professor at the University of Chicago, published a joinder to the document South Africa filed with the ICJ. Mearsheimer writes that there is no doubt that the Biden administration is complicit in Israel’s genocide, which is also a punishable act according to the Genocide Convention. He writes, "Biden’s name – and America’s name – will be forever associated with what is likely to become one of the textbook cases of attempted genocide."

So far, "most of the human rights mavens in the liberal mainstream" in the U.S., Mearsheimer explains, have kept their silence "about Israel’s savage actions in Gaza or the genocidal rhetoric of its leaders." Hidden in these words is the way to mend the global reputation of the U.S. in the post-Netanyahu and post-Gaza period: The "intellectuals, newspaper editors, policymakers, pundits and scholars who routinely proclaim their deep commitment to protecting human rights around the world" should speak up against the genocide in Palestine that has been continuing since the first nakba (the "catastrophe").

The violent displacement and dispossession of the Palestinian people, along with the destruction of their society, culture, identity, political rights and national aspirations began in 1949. The U.S. and the U.K. had looked the other way then; but they cannot do it now if they want to be respectful members of humanity, again.

Those tragic events could have provided the creation of a political identity for the Palestinian nation. Instead, it simply influenced a Palestinian culture symbolized by the political cartoon character Handala, the Palestinian keffiyeh and the "Palestinian 1948 keys," symbol of their homes lost in the nakba. Almost 75 years later, those symbols exist as strong reminders of physical and emotional loss and injustice; but they have not translated into Palestinian political ideals. There are countless books, songs and poems written about the nakba and many other catastrophes that had befallen the Palestinian people; but not one single aspiration for national unity.

In Yasser Arafat, chairperson of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1969 to 2004 and president of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) from 1994 to 2004, the cause of Palestinian statehood had found a strong representation. But after his demise, the Palestinian people had been split down in the middle; and this fragmentation simply fed the Zionist aspiration to eradicate the Palestinian people from the face of the earth.

Honorable are the leaders of both sides in their own fight against Israel’s extremism in general and Zionism in particular. But after the ICJ’s forthcoming condemnation of Netanyahu and his cabal, the world will be watching how and when the unified Palestinian state will be created within its geographically integrated borders. It will mend the reputation of the Palestinian leadership. Does it need fixing like the reputation of Israel and the U.S.?

Yes, it does.