So argues Greg Sheridan, who sees the decline of religious faith, and especially of Christianity, as the reason for the West’s crisis of confidence:

In recent weeks, Ankara has made a variety of gestures that suggest a desire to reestablish its once friendly relations with Jerusalem, which have deteriorated since Recep Tayyip Erdogan came to power in 2002. On Monday, unverified reports circulated in the Western press that Turkey is prepared to expel Hamas, which has had its main base of operations there since 2015. Erdogan’s reasons for seeking to make amends are not hard to divine: he faces a hostile White House, tensions with the European Union, a sputtering economy, and a rocky relationship with his sometimes-patron in Moscow. But, Lazar Berman writes, much has changed since 1949, when Turkey became the first Muslim-majority country to recognize the Jewish state: