She said that the UN never intended to use NATO to deal with the Serbs but hoped that its presence would bluff the Serbs. This same patter n of cloaking a power grab in religious or ethnic terms can be seen elsewhere, for example, in Rwanda. And today, we do not have a fore ign policy based on principle. Dr. Samuel Heilman, professor in Jewish studies at the City University of New York, refocused the discussion on religion. At the end of this century we have found that religion has a profound staying power, and, for many, it is a genuine counterculture t o secularity and democratic principles.
Religion often finds itself in a contest for the hearts and the minds of people.
It often equates compromise and negotiation with heresy. As well, religion often requires interpretation, not by the individual but by religious leaders. Also, in some states these same religious leaders are making decisions in the temporal domain. For many who share the religious point of view, there is a very distinct enemy, and that enemy is equated with the West and Western civiliza tion. As far as policy for the West is concerned, we must first recognize that the religious point of view is a legitimate one.