Since the terrorist atrocities of October 7, 2023 carried out by Hamas, designated as a terrorist organization by numerous countries the world has drifted into a state that oscillates between moral confusion and calculated absurdity. What initially appeared to be another tragic headline has instead exposed something deeper: a structural disorder in the global system itself. The crisis is no longer episodic. It is systemic.

What follows are five scenes from different arenas of international life. Together, they form a disturbing portrait of a world where moral clarity erodes, political convenience prevails, and the language of values is increasingly detached from reality.

Scene One: When Global Institutions Blur the Line Between Terror and Sovereignty

In the aftermath of October 7, Israel entered a war it defines as legitimate self-defense against a jihadist organization openly committed to its destruction. Yet within major international forums, resolutions and rhetoric have frequently drawn moral equivalence between a sovereign state defending its citizens and the very organization that initiated the massacre.

The distortion does not end in diplomatic chambers. Across universities and public squares in Europe and the United States, images of figures such as Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, Hassan Nasrallah, and Ali Khamenei have been raised as symbols of “resistance.” Terror, repackaged as ideology, is normalized in academic and political discourse rather than unequivocally condemned. The result is not nuance. It is erosion of standards, of definitions, of moral boundaries.

Scene Two: When Democracies Finance Authoritarianism

On October 22, 2025, the first European-Egyptian summit convened in Brussels. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen welcomed Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, head of Egypt’s entrenched military regime, with ceremonial warmth and strategic generosity. Billions of euros were pledged under the banners of partnership, stability, and cooperation.

Yet Egypt today remains one of the most restrictive political systems in the region. Independent political life is virtually extinguished. Presidential elections lack meaningful competition. An estimated 65,000 political prisoners remain behind bars. Those who dare to challenge the presidency risk incarceration.

When democratic institutions fund such systems without enforceable political conditions, the message resonates globally: stability outweighs liberty; expediency outweighs principle.

Scene Three: Sudan’s Collapse and the Quiet of the International Community

Since April 15, 2023, Sudan has been engulfed in a brutal civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces. Tens of thousands have been killed or wounded. Millions have been displaced internally and across borders. State institutions have fractured, and humanitarian conditions have deteriorated catastrophically.

The response from much of the international community has been limited to statements of concern and sporadic mediation efforts. There has been no decisive intervention commensurate with the scale of the disaster. The silence is not neutral. It is consequential.

Scene Four: Climate Emergency and Political Paralysis

Beyond armed conflict lies another existential crisis: climate change. Global temperatures continue to rise due to sustained greenhouse gas emissions, primarily carbon dioxide and methane from fossil fuels. Polar ice sheets are melting at alarming rates. Sea levels are rising. Extreme weather events intensify across continents. Wildfires devastate forests. Agricultural systems strain under unprecedented pressure, threatening food security for millions.

Governments acknowledge the data, yet structural transformation remains slow and politically constrained. Short-term economic calculations routinely override long-term planetary survival. The climate emergency exposes not merely environmental vulnerability, but institutional inadequacy.

Scene Five: When the Oppressor Sits in Judgment of Human Rights

In a striking paradox, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi recently traveled to Switzerland for nuclear negotiations with the United States, projecting diplomatic normalcy abroad while dissent at home continues to be met with imprisonment and lethal force. Thousands of young Iranians who protested the authority of the ruling clerical establishment have faced repression.

The contradiction deepened when Afsaneh Nadipour of the Islamic Republic of Iran was elected in October 2025 to the Advisory Committee of the UN Human Rights Council, assuming office in February 2026 for a term extending to 2028.

This raises an unavoidable question: how does a representative of a government widely accused of systematic human rights violations secure a seat within a body tasked with advancing human rights norms?

If the architecture of global governance permits such contradictions, then perhaps the flaw is not incidental but structural.

The cumulative weight of these scenes suggests a troubling conclusion: the post-World War II human rights framework, while historic in its aspirations, is no longer sufficient to confront contemporary political realities. The vocabulary remains intact. The enforcement mechanisms do not.

We may therefore need more than reform. We may need renewal a New Global Human Rights Pact capable of restoring coherence between principle and practice, representation and legitimacy, rhetoric and accountability.

Without such recalibration, the concept of universal human rights risks gradual dilution, until it becomes a language everyone invokes and no one truly upholds.

Note: This article was published on February 18, 2026, in my column in the Swedish newspaper Bulletin and appears here exclusively in English in The Times of Israel.

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