International Villain of the Year: Benjamin Netanyahu and Mohammed Deif

In 2023, there was no shortage of candidates for International Villain of the Year, but two men stood head and shoulders above the rest: Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Hamas leader Mohammed Deif.

Netanyahu was the overwhelming choice of voting Daily Maverick readers, but in the interests of justice an editorial decision was taken to co-award this ignominious label to the Hamas commander believed to have been behind the 7 October attack on Israel.

There can be no gainsaying the horror that was unleashed by Hamas on that date, first from the sky – via rockets and paragliders – and then on land, as Hamas fighters broke through barricades and embarked on a killing spree. By the end of a single day, around 1,200 Israelis were dead, the vast majority of them civilians.

Particularly brutal was a massacre at an outdoor music festival near Re’im, alone accounting for the murder of around 260 young Israelis. In violation of the laws of war, somewhere in the region of 250 hostages were also taken by Hamas – among them young children and the elderly – with many still kept in captivity at the time of writing.

In response to the attack, the wrath unleashed by the Israeli military under the government of Netanyahu has been horrifying. The number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip in the Israeli retaliatory onslaught has dwarfed the number of Israelis slain in the 7 October attack by at least 15 to one. The UN has warned that Gaza is becoming “a graveyard for children”, while the number of journalists killed has outstripped any modern conflict.

For South Africans, there was particular grief and outrage at the killing of Gift of the Givers’ Gaza head Ahmed Abbasi, a 34-year-old father of three, along with his brother.



The number of medical staff and NGO workers killed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) should also be noted. In one case, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) says it provided the IDF with the GPS coordinates of a hospital where its staff would be working, to shield them from harm. The very next day, the facility in question – Al-Awda Hospital in north Gaza – was hit in a strike, killing two MSF doctors.

Although Hamas’ actions on 7 October deserve our strongest condemnation, it also cannot be denied that provocations towards Palestinians have escalated under Netanyahu’s increasingly right-wing coalition ­government.

In March this year, The New Yorker warned that Netanyahu’s administration was “overseeing – and encouraging – brutal attacks by settlers on Palestinians”, and that “the new government has announced ‘guidelines’ declaring its intent to ‘advance and develop settlement in all parts of the land of Israel’”.

Domestically, Netanyahu’s government has also led an assault on Israel’s democratic institutions – particularly the judiciary. Like a certain former head of state closer to home, Netanyahu has a corruption case hanging over his head, and limiting the powers of judges is a neat way to buy longer-term job security. Since January, Israel has been roiled by protests against a government widely judged as ultra-nationalist and illiberal.

It is now becoming clear that the Hamas attack was only able to happen thanks to multiple failures of intelligence and overconfidence on the part of the Israeli military. The New York Times recently reported that Israeli commanders were aware of Hamas’ plan a year in advance and dismissed it as “aspirational”. A poll by the Israeli Democracy Institute released in late October found that trust in Netanyahu’s government had collapsed to a 20-year low, with just 20% of Israelis saying they had faith in his Cabinet.

By the end of the year, tens of thousands of Israelis and Palestinians will be dead, with yet more blood soaking the soil of that tormented land. Hamas’ atrocious attack and Israel’s chilling response, meanwhile, will have virtually ensured that new generations on both sides of the conflict are re-radicalised for years to come. So much to grieve, and so little to hope for. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R29.