The major ethical questions of our contemporary world are no longer an intellectual luxury or an elite debate detached from reality. They are being imposed forcefully by shocking facts unfolding before global public opinion. Between the scenes of open genocide in Gaza Strip, accompanied by political justification and international moral silence, and the scandals of Jeffrey Epstein, which exposed the fragility of justice and accountability systems within societies that most loudly claim to protect human dignity, the world finds itself facing an unprecedented moment of exposure.
This is a moment in which it is no longer sufficient to describe what is happening as a passing case of double standards. It has become necessary to question the very moral foundation upon which the West’s claim to global leadership in the name of values was built.
For decades, the West’s moral authority was constructed as a universal reference point, supposedly serving as the benchmark by which the legitimacy of policies, alliances, and wars was measured. This authority, long presented as the product of moral superiority and a mature human experience, now appears fractured from within, stripped of its power to persuade and unable to withstand the tests of reality whenever principles collide with interests. Gaza stands as the clearest example of this collapse, where human rights rhetoric crumbled before images of bloodshed, and proclaimed values retreated in the face of power calculations.
In this context, the real question is no longer limited to criticising the West or condemning its contradictions. It extends further, towards a deeper self examination concerning our own societies, which for so long have consumed Western values as the highest model and the sole moral reference.
Has the time come to reconsider this ethical dependence? Do Islamic and Arab societies possess authentic values capable of forming an alternative moral reference, not as a reactive or propagandistic comparison, but as a principled project able to endure and commit?
This article does not proceed from an emotional call to replace one system with another, nor from cultural nostalgia for the past. It is an attempt to rationally dissect the current moment of moral collapse and to seriously pose the question of an alternative, with intellectual responsibility and historical awareness. When grand illusions fall, the search for authentic moral roots becomes not an ideological choice, but an existential necessity to rebuild meaning and justice in a world rapidly losing its shared ethical compass.
Western Moral Authority. Origins, Claims, and the Limits of Legitimacy
What has come to be known as Western moral authority did not emerge as the result of pure moral superiority. It developed within a specific historical context following the Second World War, when Europe emerged materially devastated and morally fractured after the exposure of fascism and Nazism, while the United States rose as a military and economic power that had not been geographically exhausted at that moment in history.
Establishing a new international order was not possible through force alone. It required a unifying moral narrative that would grant legitimacy to global leadership. Accordingly, a value based and legal framework was promoted as universal and trans cultural.
This was clearly reflected in the founding of the United Nations, the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, the construction of international humanitarian law, and later the development of international judicial mechanisms and special tribunals. This structure was not merely an expression of an awakened human conscience. It was part of the architecture of a new global order through which the West sought to entrench its leadership and prevent a return to the chaos that had produced two world wars.
The fundamental problem was not the declared values themselves, which carry genuine human content, but the way these values were politically instrumentalised. From the early days of the Cold War, it became clear that Western moral discourse was not a binding standard but a selective tool, activated when it served interests and suspended when it conflicted with them.
Defending democracy did not prevent support for authoritarian regimes in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Protecting human rights did not stop the overlooking of widespread violations as long as they were committed by strategic allies.
Despite this structural contradiction, the West retained for decades what can be described as symbolic moral capital. Violations could be justified as exceptions or implementation failures. The Western system was viewed as capable of self correction through free media, oversight institutions, and judicial independence. This proclaimed capacity for self criticism formed one of the pillars of the moral claim and gave Western leadership a veneer of ethical superiority even in moments of failure.
However, this claim began to erode gradually with the end of the Cold War, when the West shifted from being one party in an ideological conflict to a near singular hegemonic power. The need to cloak power with the same level of moral justification diminished. The world witnessed major wars and military interventions that were initially marketed on ethical grounds, only for their lack of solid legal and humanitarian foundations to become evident later.
With the repetition of such experiences, doubt began to infiltrate the credibility of the discourse itself, not merely its policies.
This shift became evident in the handling of international law, which came to be interpreted with extreme flexibility when Western interests or those of its allies were involved, and applied with rigidity when the adversary lay outside its sphere. Here, the issue moved beyond double standards to what can be described as a crisis of moral legitimacy. Legitimacy does not rest solely on possessing power or institutions, but on persuasion, and persuasion cannot exist without a minimum level of consistency between words and actions.
With the rise of global media and the transformation of digital space into an open arena for images and information, the West lost one of its most effective traditional tools for controlling narratives. Violations could no longer be easily concealed or framed. Global public opinion became a direct witness to the contradiction between value based rhetoric and political practice.
Today, the limits of Western moral legitimacy are not defined by international treaties or the number of signed agreements, but by the actual capacity to adhere to proclaimed values when doing so carries political or strategic cost. Ethics that are not tested at moments of cost do not establish legitimacy. They function as decorative rhetoric. The crisis of Western moral authority is therefore neither sudden nor fleeting. It is the result of accumulated historical contradictions that have reached the point of full exposure.
In this sense, the West has not lost its declared values as much as it has lost its monopoly over representing them. When universal values are transformed into political instruments, they lose their capacity to grant legitimacy and become objects of dispute rather than consensus. This is where Western moral authority stands today. Not entirely collapsed, but no longer acceptable as an unquestionable supreme reference.
Epstein and Gaza. From Double Standards to the Collapse of the Narrative
The deep fracture in the contemporary Western moral narrative cannot be understood solely through tracking political events. It requires examining how the Western system has handled its internal and external crises as tests of the credibility of the values it claims to uphold.
The comparison between the Jeffrey Epstein case and what has occurred and continues to occur in Gaza is revealing, not in terms of the events themselves, but in the mechanisms of denial, protection, and justification governing the responses to both.
The Epstein case was not a passing criminal scandal involving individual misconduct. From the moment it erupted, it constituted a dangerous indicator of the relationship between power, wealth, and political elites in the West. Judicial and media findings that emerged from 2019 onwards exposed a broad network of ties linking Epstein to influential figures in politics, economics, and media, alongside the failure of justice institutions to seriously pursue him for years despite documented complaints involving the sexual trafficking of minors.
His death in prison, officially described as suicide, effectively closed the door to accountability and left fundamental questions unanswered regarding the limits of judicial independence and its ability to prosecute true centres of power.
The ethical significance of this case does not lie in the crime itself, but in how the scandal was contained. The experience showed that a system proclaiming the protection of children and human dignity is capable, when a case touches high circles of authority, of suspending transparency and accountability mechanisms and settling for procedural measures that do not address the core of the issue. In this sense, the Epstein case became a symbol of structural imbalance in the application of justice, where values operate as public discourse rather than binding commitments when elites are involved.
Gaza placed Western moral discourse before an external test that was harsher and more explicit. With the documentation of widespread bombardment, the targeting of civilian infrastructure, and the killing of large numbers of civilians, including women and children, the facts became available to the world in image and sound, beyond denial or concealment.
Despite this, official Western responses were characterised by political justification or selective silence, and by the use of diplomatic and legal tools to obstruct any serious international accountability.
Here, double standards do not appear merely as an ethical flaw, but as a factor that undermines the narrative itself. Western discourse historically rested on the idea that respect for human rights is not a matter of identity or affiliation, but a universal and indivisible principle. The handling of Gaza revealed that this principle is redefined according to alliance and interest, and that international humanitarian law is interpreted flexibly when the perpetrator is a strategic ally, and enforced strictly when the adversary lies outside the circle of influence.
The analytical link between Epstein and Gaza does not stem from similarities between the crimes, but from similarities in the structure of response. In both cases, a value system fails to confront truth when doing so carries political or institutional cost.
In the first, elites were protected from exposure by closing the file before it reached centres of decision making. In the second, strategic alliances were protected by disabling international accountability tools, even at the expense of moral credibility.
The danger of this trajectory lies not in producing temporary moral outrage, but in collapsing the narrative itself as a persuasive framework for the world. When global public opinion sees justice as selective and the value of victims weighed by political scales, trust in Western discourse as a moral reference erodes.
At this point, speaking of double standards is no longer sufficient. The problem is no longer in application, but in the very foundation of the moral claim.
The Epstein case represented an internal moment of exposure that revealed the fragility of accountability systems within the West. Gaza represented an external moment of exposure that revealed the limits of its commitment to the values it demands of others.
Between these two exposures, the ability to persuade dissolves, and persuasion is the essential element of any moral leadership. Power may impose silence temporarily, but it does not produce lasting legitimacy. A narrative that fails to withstand reality collapses, even if instruments of dominance continue to function.
In this sense, the danger of Epstein and Gaza lies in their being two links in a single chain signalling the transition from a stage of ethically justifiable contradiction to a stage of inability to defend the value based narrative itself. Historically, such transitions have always preceded major periods of imperial decline.
Historical Comparison. Empires Fall Morally Before They Fall Politically
A long view of imperial history reveals that collapse does not begin at the moment of military defeat or economic breakdown. It is preceded by a deeper and more dangerous phase marked by the erosion of moral legitimacy that justifies dominance and grants it internal and external acceptance.
Power, regardless of its scale, cannot endure without a moral narrative that convinces those governed before it convinces rivals that the existing order is not merely imposed by force, but represents a just system, a necessary one, or the least harmful of available options.
In the Roman experience, one of the clearest classical examples, the empire at its height of expansion was not merely a military machine. It presented itself as the bearer of the idea of Roman peace, which promised stability in exchange for submission to central authority.
This narrative gradually lost credibility when peace turned into repression, and when provinces came to view Rome as a centre of taxation and exploitation rather than a reference for justice. As the gap widened between discourse and practice, the moral bond tying the periphery to the centre weakened long before armies declined or borders fragmented.
Late Roman historians documented this shift clearly when they spoke of the erosion of republican values and the rise of privilege and corruption within the ruling elite, a development that psychologically and politically prepared the ground for prolonged decline.
The same pattern recurred in modern European colonial experience, particularly in the British Empire, which built its expansionist project on the rhetoric of a civilising mission and the spread of law and modern commerce.
For a century, Britain balanced hard power with moral discourse, presenting itself as a rational force bringing order to a chaotic world. This discourse began to unravel as the gap between claim and practice widened, especially in major colonies such as India, where manufactured famines, violent repression, and resource extraction exposed civilisation as an ideological cover for economic domination.
With the rise of liberation movements, the challenge was not directed solely at British military power, but at its moral legitimacy, which became openly questioned even within Western public opinion itself.
What unites these experiences is that the moment of moral exposure was always the decisive turning point. When subjected peoples realise that declared values are merely political language subject to suspension, and when the centre loses its ability to present itself as a model worth emulating, internal disintegration begins.
This does not mean immediate collapse, but entry into a prolonged phase of attrition in which persuasion is lost and reliance on raw force increases.
In this framework, the comparison with the contemporary Western condition is historically valid. The value based discourse formed after the Second World War, grounded in human rights and international law, performed a function similar to Roman peace and the civilising mission. Repeated selectivity, justification, and deliberate obstruction of accountability have now produced a deep crisis of credibility.
This crisis does not necessarily signal imminent decline of Western power, but it does indicate the beginning of a loss of moral leadership that once gave that power its global dimension.
History does not repeat itself verbatim, but it reproduces similar patterns. In every case, moral collapse precedes political decline, even if the latter is delayed for decades. Empires are not defeated only when they fail to defend their borders, but when they fail to defend their image before themselves and others. At that point, their continuation becomes a matter of time.
Beyond Moral Authority. Towards an Authentic Ethical Reference in the Islamic and Arab World
Current transformations reveal that the crisis of Western moral authority is no longer a matter of eroded discourse or damaged reputation. It reflects a structural imbalance in the relationship between power and values within the contemporary global system.
When a moral reference loses its essential condition, consistency between declared principles and actual practice, it shifts from leadership to mere assertion. At this moment, it is not a single system that falls, but a broad ethical vacuum that affects all.
This vacuum does not necessitate dependence on imported moral systems that have lost credibility, nor does it justify surrender to naked power as an unavoidable fate. Islamic and Arab societies possess within their ethical heritage a rich reservoir that has neither been exhausted nor seriously tested in the modern era as an independent reference capable of producing moral meaning for politics and international relations.
Islamic values are founded on principles of justice, human dignity, the sanctity of life, accountability of authority, and centrality of responsibility. Historically, these were not presented as abstract slogans, but as binding rules regulating individual and collective conduct and linking political legitimacy to adherence.
Justice in Islamic thought is not a relative value deferred when it conflicts with interest. It is the foundation of social order and a condition of stability. Human beings are honoured for their inherent worth, not their affiliation. Authority is a trust to be questioned before it is obeyed.
Alongside this, Arab ethical traditions have long upheld values such as loyalty, protection of the vulnerable, fulfilment of covenants, and rejection of treachery. These values shaped social and political relations for centuries.
When reclaimed as rules of political and ethical conduct rather than cultural heritage, they can form the basis of an alternative moral discourse. One that does not compete with the West for claims of universality, but speaks from particularity to humanity as humanity.
Calling for adherence to Islamic and Arab values does not mean isolation or rupture with the world, nor does it justify internal wrongdoing under the banner of cultural specificity. It means rebuilding an ethical standard that holds the self accountable before judging others and makes values a reference for politics rather than a tool in its hands.
The fundamental difference between a living moral system and a fallen one lies not in its cultural source, but in its willingness to bear the cost of commitment when values become burdens rather than interests.
In a post Western moral authority world, power is no longer measured solely by deterrence capabilities, but by the ability to offer meaning, justice, and ethical discipline. If the West has lost its monopoly over representing universal values, the opportunity before the Islamic and Arab world is not to inherit this monopoly, but to present a different model, more modest and more consistent, reconnecting ethics with action and freeing values from instrumental use.
The true challenge is not in declaring an alternative, but in embodying it. Values that do not translate into policy, governance, and internal justice will remain parallel discourse incapable of filling the vacuum. If ethics are restored as the foundation of legitimacy rather than its ornament, the world may not be forced to choose between failed dominance and value free chaos, but may witness the emergence of a new ethical path, shaped by multiple references without losing its shared humanity.
