While there are many non-religious Americans who donate liberally to secular charities, there is an overwhelming correlation between religious commitment and generosity. Jeff Jacoby writes:

From the earliest days of American history, religious faith and practice have been the foremost drivers of charitable giving and good works. “In study after study, religious practice is the behavioral variable with the strongest and most consistent association with generous giving,” wrote Karl Zinsmeister in a study for the Philanthropy Roundtable in 2019. “And people with religious motivations don’t give just to faith-based causes—they are also much likelier to give to secular causes.”

Of the roughly 1.5 million charitable entities in the United States (not including foundations), one-third are either explicitly religious, motivated by a religious mission, or in some other way “faith-inspired.”

A desire to help those in distress is not a value unique to religious believers. But no force in American life has ever matched religious belief in its ability to translate “Love the Stranger” and “Love Thy Neighbor” into organized, effective, and ongoing action. What happens when that force weakens?

As late as 1999, Gallup reported that 70 percent of Americans belonged to a house of worship; today that figure is 45 percent, a record low. According to the Pew Research Center, 28 percent of American adults identify religiously as atheist, agnostic, or “nothing in particular.” Given the unambiguous link between religious ties and charitable goodness, that is an alarming trend.

Yesterday, Israel’s Channel 12 reported that Israeli representatives have been involved in secret talks, brokered by the United Arab Emirates, with their Syrian counterparts about the potential establishment of diplomatic relations between their countries. Even more surprisingly, on Wednesday an Israeli reporter spoke with a senior official from Syria’s information ministry, Ali al-Rifai. The prospect of a member of the Syrian government, or even a private citizen, giving an on-the-record interview to an Israeli journalist was simply unthinkable under the old regime. What’s more, his message was that Damascus seeks peace with other countries in the region, Israel included.

These developments alone should make Israelis sanguine about Donald Trump’s overtures to Syria’s new rulers. Yet the interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa’s jihadist resumé, his connections with Turkey and Qatar, and brutal attacks on minorities by forces aligned with, or part of, his regime remain reasons for skepticism. While recognizing these concerns, Noah Rothman nonetheless makes the case for optimism:

The old Syrian regime was an incubator and exporter of terrorism, as well as an Iranian vassal state. The Assad regime trained, funded, and introduced terrorists into Iraq intent on killing American soldiers. It hosted Iranian terrorist proxies as well as the Russian military and its mercenary cutouts. It was contemptuous of U.S.-backed proscriptions on the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield, necessitating American military intervention—an unavoidable outcome, clearly, given Barack Obama’s desperate efforts to avoid it. It incubated Islamic State as a counterweight against the Western-oriented rebel groups vying to tear that regime down, going so far as to purchase its own oil from the nascent Islamist group.

The Assad regime was an enemy of the United States. The Sharaa regime could yet be a friend to America. . . . Insofar as geopolitics is a zero-sum game, taking Syria off the board for Russia and Iran and adding it to the collection of Western assets would be a triumph. At the very least, it’s worth a shot. Trump deserves credit for taking it.