Over the past century, neither the bureaucrats at the U.S. State Department nor scholars of foreign relations have ascribed much importance to religion, preferring to look to other motivations in explaining and predicting the behavior of peoples and governments. By ignoring faith, and assuming that the progress of modernity leads inexorably to greater secularization, they have consistently failed to understand the world as it is, argues Charles Hill:

Answering the question “Why am I Zionist?” Douglas Feith writes: