The Collapse of the Moral Compass: From Epstein to Gaza

The scene at the entrance of the Rafah crossing, with its barbed wire and humiliating procedures, not only encapsulates the brutality of the occupation but also reveals the ugly face of what is called the "free world" and the failure of Arab and Islamic countries to protect the humanity and dignity of the Palestinian people.

What happened yesterday to those returning for treatment through the crossing on its first day of humiliations, harsh interrogations, handcuffing, and extortion, including women and children, is not just an isolated incident; rather, it is a systematic practice that reproduces the logic of imprisonment at a gate that is supposed to be humanitarian.

Today, we live in a world where ethics are used as a selective weapon, not as a fixed human standard. Values are summoned at their utmost intensity when the accused are from the "others," but they evaporate as soon as the accusation approaches from within the camp. The difference between a "crime" and a "fabricated case," between a "victim" and a "culprit," has become not moral or legal, but purely political.

A man convicted or involved in sexual assault crimes and paid hush money is suddenly re-presented as a "victim of political persecution," while the crime is erased and replaced with conspiracy rhetoric.

This collapse does not occur in marginal systems but in countries that boast of being guardians of values and democracy. The United States and Israel present themselves as models for the free world, but their practices reveal a glaring paradox: democracy without justice, and freedom without accountability. When values are reduced to ballot boxes or public loyalty, morality becomes subject to suspension whenever it touches the leader or the project.

The case of Jeffrey Epstein reveals this fracture at the heart of the American model. A clear crime, known victims, and abundant evidence, yet justice was not the goal. The truth was drowned in a flood of information or politically recycled until it lost its power to condemn. The disclosure did not lead to accountability for the system that protected the crime but rather normalized it. The problem here is not Epstein as an individual but rather the system that allowed him to operate and then allowed itself to escape accountability.

The same mechanism operates in Israel but on a collective scale. In Gaza, we are not discussing a scandal or individual deviation, but rather an integrated policy: killing, destruction, starvation, forced displacement, and denial of life in preparation for expulsion. Yet, these crimes are presented in polished legal language, and under the umbrella of "self-defense;" as in the American case, the crime is not entirely denied, but its act is stripped of its moral meaning.

Gaza is the most horrific witness to this collapse. More than two years of genocide, while the West stops at expressions of concern, and international law is paralyzed in the name of political realism. The question is no longer: Is what is happening a crime? But rather: Why is justice not applied when the perpetrator is a democratic ally?

Just as Epstein's crime was normalized through noise, Gaza's killing is being normalized through language. Massacres turn into "collateral damage," genocide into "defensive war," and starving civilians into "security constraints." The same moral compass that failed to protect girls from sexual exploitation is the one that is failing today to protect children from bombing and hunger.

In both cases, justice is replaced by managing impressions. The inverted question is raised: "Is the evidence sufficient?" instead of the essential question: "What will we do because the crime is certain?" This is how democracy turns from a system of values into a political theater, and ethics become a rhetorical tool used only when power costs nothing.

Gaza is not merely a humanitarian tragedy; it is an ethical-political test in which the Western model has failed, just as it previously failed in confronting major domestic crimes. The same failure that allowed exploitation networks to thrive under the protection of influence is what today allows the genocide of a people under the cover of the "common values" discourse.

Epstein may be dead, but the system that protected him is still alive. The system that is silent today on Gaza is the same: democracy without accountability, law without justice, and ethics summoned only when it costs nothing. In such a world, Gaza is not an exception but the harshest evidence that the moral compass has collapsed from its center, not from its margins.